Dutch Olympic Games in 2028? News framing and the presence of actors in Dutch newspaper coverage

Dutch Olympic Games in 2028?

News framing and the presence of actors in Dutch newspaper coverage

Yasemin Smit

0463418

University of Amsterdam

Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences

Department

Graduate School of Communication

MA Thesis

Political Communication

Supervisor

dr. A.R.T. (Andreas) Schuck

Date

June 29, 2012

Abstract This study examines the presence of generic and issue-specific news frames in Dutch newspapers regarding the public discussion on the bid for the 2028 Olympic Games1 by the Netherlands. It also considers the visibility of actors that are involved in the public debate during the bid period.

A content analysis of articles in national and regional newspapers (2006 till 2011) shows that media framing is an active part of the way journalists portray the bid, which can have an effect on public opinion regarding the bid for the Olympic Games. Four generic news frames and one issue-specific frame were visible in the news coverage, from which the economic controversy frame was most present. At national and regional level newspapers mainly focus on the economic consequences of the bid. At the regional level the primary focus of newspapers was between the human interest, conflict, attribution of responsibility and issue-specific area development controversy frame.

Politicians were the most visible actors in the news coverage and were mostly found in combination with the economic consequences frame. There seems to be a strong interaction between the interest of prominent newspapers and politicians concerning the financial risks of organizing the Olympic Games, making this the main subject of the public discussion regarding the bid. Interviews with formal and informal lobbyists from sport organizations made it clear that it is difficult for them to communicate their vision to the public, namely the importance of organizing the Olympic Games in relation to the broader development of sport and health in the Netherlands. The actual discussions in newspapers are dominated by the political agenda about financing the Games and it is difficult to interest newspaper journalists for a distant event situated in 2028. If the lobbyists want to increase their influence on public opinion, they have to look for another media strategy and other media.

Key Words

Media framing, generic news frames, issue-specific news frames, newspaper

coverage, frame building, actors, Olympic Games, 2028.

1

Introduction

In 2006, several sport federations and the national government have taken up the idea to organize the Olympic Games (OG) of the year 2028 in the Netherlands. In that year it will be exactly one hundred years ago that a Dutch city (Amsterdam) hosted the OG (Paauw & Visser, 2008; Van Rossem & Fleming, 1928). The procedure to run as candidate for the OG says that in 2019 the candidature has to be submitted to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and in 2021 the IOC will reveal which city will organize the 2028 OG. Prior to submission the organizing committee has to persuade the Dutch population that it is worth bidding and that the financial risks are acceptable. Additionally they have to persuade the IOC that the Netherlands is a better candidate than other countries that will also stand as candidates.

One of the conditions of the IOC is that there is broad support for the organization of the OG in the host city. Hover and Doesborgh (2009) suggest that at least seventy percent of the population need to support the nomination. Elling and Van der Werf (2011) indicate that the OG are never assigned to a city where the public support below this unofficial guideline. The lobby to inform the Dutch population started immediately: “Everyone should be thinking about the importance of the OG in their part of society”, said Willem-Alexander, crown prince of the Netherlands and a member of the IOC in de Volkskrant (Volkers, 2011).

Organizing the OG in a small and densely populated country like the Netherlands will lead to public discussions. During the period of organizing a bid the media are crucial in the process of pursuing the Dutch public. The primary focus of this study is on how these discussions in the media take place and how they are structured by the different interest groups in Dutch society.

The way a subject is portrayed by the media is called framing which is better explained as “the observation that media can portray one and the same topic in very different ways, emphasizing certain evaluations or only parts of an issue at the expense of others” (Schuck & De Vreese, 2006, p.5). During a debate a (political) position is usually framed in opposing terms, which means that individuals can receive multiple frames from different media at the same time (Chong & Druckman, 2007a). This study will investigate media framing of Dutch national and regional newspapers around the possible bid on the 2028 OG. Central in this study is the following main research question:

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In which way do Dutch national and regional newspapers frame (the preparation of) the bid for the 2028 OG by the Netherlands during the first two phases of the bid process, and to what extent are there connections between the main actors involved in the public debate and the frames used in the news coverage?

This question will be answered based on a media content analysis of national and regional newspapers and in-depth interviews with prominent journalists, politicians and lobbyists from national sport organizations.

Several research projects have been conducted on how the OG has been framed in different media in the past. Most of these studies looked at news that was published when a particular city was already named ‘candidate’ or ‘host city’ (Barnard, Butler, Golding, & Maguire, 2006; Carey, Mason, & Misener, 2011; Zaharopoulos, 2007). When a city is organizing the OG or when the Games are already taking place it is likely that different issues will be presented in the media than when a city is still in the process of deciding whether or not to run for candidate for an OG that will be held in the distant future.

The way newspapers are framing public discussions during a bid period of a ‘host’ country has been relatively unexplored. This study tries to give a better understanding of how an (early) bid process of a mega event like the OG is covered by media in a specific case (the Netherlands). Previous research has shown that the way an issue is framed in the media affects understanding and beliefs of the public regarding this issue (Nelson, Clawson, & Oxley, 1997; Price, Tewksbury, & Powers, 1997; Rhee, 1997; Schuck & De Vreese, 2006; Slothuus & De Vreese, 2010). Media can construct meaning in public debate by shaping controversies relating a bid for the OG, which can persuade individuals to look at the issue from a one sided point of view. This study also tries to give a better understanding of the interaction between media frames and actors that are present in news articles. This gives an insight for journalists and lobbyists regarding the appearance of OG in the media, for this specific case but also for the organization of other mega events.

This study is organized as follows. First, background information is provided regarding the regulations of the IOC for cities that consider organizing the OG with particular attention to the bid for the 2028 OG by the Netherlands. Next, a review of literature about media framing and actors that are visibly involved in the bid process is provided, resulting in the presentation of sub research questions. The methods that are used to answer the research questions are also described 3

and the results that can be drawn from the media content analysis and interviews are presented.

Finally, conclusions that can be drawn are discussed.

The IOC and the Dutch Olympic Plan

The OG are no longer ‘just’ a sporting event, the organization requires major investments and it is an uncertain undertaking given the competition with other countries. The IOC elects cities in two steps (Poast, 2007). It starts with a ‘candidate acceptance procedure’, in which cities indicate that they want to organize the OG (Andranovich, Burbank, & Heying, 2001).2 In the case of the Dutch bid for the 2028 OG a choice has to be made between the capital of the Netherlands Amsterdam and the European port Rotterdam (Bergsma, n.d.). All candidates have upfront to accept the IOC charter and rules, instructions and conditions established by the IOC for applicant cities.3 For some political groups these rules are controversial, for example the tax freedom for all IOC members. In the ‘candidate procedure’ phase IOC selects cities to be considered as ‘candidate’.4 After which IOC members vote in a secret ballot regarding the location of the OG (International Olympic Committee [IOC], 2010, 2011). The IOC, representatives of the elected city and the National Olympic Committee (NOC) sign a ‘host city contract’. For the 2028 OG the election to be a ‘candidate city’ will be made in 2020 and the election of the definite ‘host city’ takes place in 2021.

After the success of the 2000 OG in Sydney the idea of the OG organized in the Netherlands took off. Between 2006 and 2009 NOC*NSF investigated the feasibility and analyzed how to set up the debate around the organization of the OG to gain broad public support. There must be determined whether it was worth to make investments in an ‘Olympic sporting climate’, the aim of a long term positive effect on the entire Dutch community by projects that contribute to many different levels of society (Westerbeek, 2009). A Dutch Olympic Plan was developed, based on broader (political) ambitions: development of a professional sports environment; development of sports activities in all levels of society; achieving a healthy population; positive economic impulse; infrastructural development to increase mobility and reach-ability; ambition to organize major sport and cultural events; and broad media-attention, emphasizing on media coverage of sport activities to stimulate the participation in sport and achieve a top three position in Europe in the field of sports experience. To accomplish this, a ‘Cross Media Platform of Sports’ is launched, 4

with focus on television, web-television with video on demand, mobile television and targettelevision in for example sport clubs (NOC*NSF, 2009).

NOC*NSF started the ‘advancement phase’ (2009-2016) with a media lobby to persuade the Dutch population about the advantages of organizing the OG. The central message was that we will all benefit from organizing the OG on the level of social development, economics, spatial development and welfare (NOC*NSF, 2009). A strong alliance called Olympisch Vuur was formed to support the Olympic Plan: several provinces, four major cities (Utrecht, Rotterdam, Den Haag and Amsterdam), the Association of Dutch Municipalities, Trade Unions and the two Business Associations, NOC*NSF and the Cabinet (Olympisch Vuur 2028, 2012). Mister Opstelten, former mayor of Rotterdam, was named first chairman of the Council of the Olympic Plan 2028 (Velthuis, 2009b). This ‘coalition of elites’ (Hiller, 2000) became the main lobby organization behind the Dutch bidding process. In 2016 the parties of the Olympisch Vuur alliance will decide about preparing a bid for the 2028 OG. It will be crucial in this matter whether a majority of the Dutch population supports it.

However, the voice of the opposition is growing in the media. Former NOC*NSF Director, Marcel Sturkenboom, argues that the framing around the OG so far was mainly “focusing on urban planning and city marketing issues” (as cited in Westerbeek, 2009; p.786). The discussions has been opened on in what form the Dutch OG should take place (Westerbeek, 2009) and which city should ‘host’ the OG (De Jager & Ruizenaar, 2010; Dirks & Van Keken, 2011; Velthuis, 2009a).5 The ‘costs and benefits’ of the OG were also heavily discussed in the media (De Nooij, 2012).6 Organizing the OG can have a positive effect on the economy of the host country (Bergsma, 2009; De Waard, 2011), but most of the debate is about the fear that the OG could be more expensive than initially estimated (ANP, 2011; Hoeks, 2010; Van Driel, 2012).

Theoretical framework: Media framing and actors involved in the news coverage

This chapter lays out the theoretical framework. A description of media frames is provided, with special attention to generic and issue-specific news frames. And the visibility and participation of actors in the frame building process surrounding the bid is discussed.

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Media frames Citizens are dependent on mass media for their news about public issues. The different positions that are taken by newspapers regarding the bid could possibly lead to different forms of frames used by these media. In scientific research much attention is given to the concept of ‘framing’ (Chong & Druckman, 2007a; Entman, 1993; Scheufele, 1999; Scheufele & Tewksbury, 2007; Weaver, 2007), here defined as “the observation that media can portray one and the same topic in very different ways, emphasizing certain evaluations or only parts of an issue at the expense of others” (Schuck & De Vreese, 2006, p.5). A distinction can be made between individual frames and media frames (Scheufele,1999). Individual frames are “mentally stored clusters of ideas that guide individuals’ procession of information” (Entman, 1993, p.53). In this study we focus on media frames, “a central organizing idea or story line that provides meaning to an unfolded strip of events, weaving a connection among them” (Gamson & Modigliani, 1987, p.143). According to Maier and Rittberger (2008) media frames refer to the practical presentation of complex information by journalists. A distinction should be made between ‘generic news frames’ applicable to “a range of different news topics in different cultural contexts” (De Vreese, Peter, & Semetko, 2001, p.108) - and ‘issue-specific news frames’ - applicable to “specific topics or news events” (p.108). In this study, both types of frames will be considered.

Media frames can have an effect on public opinion (Nelson et al., 1997; Price et al., 1997; Rhee, 1997; Schuck & De Vreese, 2006; Slothuus & de Vreese, 2010). A framing effect is said to occur when changes in the presentation of an issue lead to changes of public opinion (Chong & Druckman, 2007b) and readers gave substantial attention to news stories regarding the issue (Scheufele & Tewksbury, 2007). A distinction can be made between two types of framing effects (Chong & Drukman, 2007b; Druckman, 2001): an equivalency or valence framing effect - “examines how the use of different, but logically equivalent, words or phrases causes individuals to alter their preferences” (Druckman, 2001, p.228) - and an emphasis or issue framing effect – “by emphasizing a subset of potentially relevant considerations, a speaker can lead individuals to focus on these consideration when constructing their opinions” (p.230).

Generic news frames Generic news frames can be used to analyse news coverage of different topics even if there are thematic, cultural or time limitations (De Vreese & Boomgaarden, 2003). In their analysis of the Amsterdam meetings of European heads of state in 1997, Semetko and Valkenburg (2000) defined 6

five generic news frames: (1) attribution of responsibility frame (AoRF), (2) conflict frame (CF), (3) human interest frame (HIF), (4) economic consequences frame (ECF) and (5) morality frame (MF). The authors assume that these frames are generally part of news coverage regardless of the topic at hand. They found that the responsibility frame was most common in Dutch news, followed by the conflict frame.

The ‘attribution of responsibility frame’ “presents an issue in such a way as to attribute responsibility for its cause or solution to the government or to an individual group” (Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000, p. 96). In this study, this could involve media publishing news regarding the bid by mentioning who can be held responsible for issues regarding the bid. Iyengar and Kinder (1987, as cited in An & Gower, 2009, p. 108) showed that when media emphasize who is responsible for causing or solving a problem they can have a important role in influencing public opinion.

The ‘conflict frame’ “emphasizes conflicts between individuals, groups or institutions as a means of capturing audience interest” (Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000, p.95). In the current study, this could involve media publishing news regarding the bid in terms of controversy and disagreement regarding the preparation of the bid. Diverging aspects between parties are often the focus of media attention (De Vreese, 2004).They use of the conflict frame can increase thoughts that involve conflict (Valkenburg, Semetko, & De Vreese, 1999).

The ‘human interest frame’ “brings a human face or an emotional angle to the presentation of an event, issue, or problem” (Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000, p.95). In this study, this could involve media publishing news regarding the bid through individual stories of persons that are involved in the Olympic Plan. By using a human interest frame news becomes more personal, dramatic and emotional (Valkenburg et al., 1999). Cho and Gower (2006) showed that the use of the human interest frame can influence the emotional response of participants to a crisis. The participants felt more empathy about the accident. Other research has shown that the use of the human interest frame can reduce the recall of information afterwards (Valkenburg et al., 1999).

The ‘economic consequences frame’ “reports an event, problem or issue in terms of the economic consequences it will have on an individual, group, institution, region, or country” (Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000, p.96). In this study, this could involve media publishing news regarding the bid through the economic consequences that constructing stadiums and optimizing infrastructure will have in the future. Exposure to a news story framed in economic consequences can have the effect that readers’ attitude towards a topic is more focused on considerations regarding costs and financial implications (Valkenburg et al., 1999; De Vreese, 2004). It also 7

applies that a greater impact is visible through the response of individuals to negative economic news than to positive news (Soraka, 2006).

The ‘morality frame’ “puts an event, problem, or issue in the context of religious tenets or moral prescriptions” (p.96). In this study, this could involve media publishing news regarding the bid considering moral resistance against consequences of the OG for the environment. Brewer (2002) showed that the use of the morality frame in news coverage influences the language that people use giving their views on gay rights in terms of morality.

The frames introduced above are assumed to play a role in the media coverage of the bid on the 2028 OG by the Netherlands and are considered relevant given their potential impact on citizens and public opinion. To answer the main research question, the following sub-question is posed: Which generic news frames are used in Dutch national and regional newspaper coverage regarding the bid for the 2028 OG by the Netherlands?

Issue-specific news frames Issue-specific news frames are unique to certain topics and can be analysed in news coverage of specific issues or events (De Vreese & Boomgaarden, 2003). The study by Malfas, Theodoraki and Houlihan (2004) on the impact of the OG as mega events is used as a starting point to shape news frames on controversies that are present in the media regarding a bid for the OG. The following four ‘controversy’ frames that were developed are considered to be potentially relevant to a bid process for the OG: (1) socio-economic controversy frame, (2) socio-cultural controversy frame, (3) physical controversy frame and (4) political controversy frame. A brief overview of these issue-specific news frames will be given with connections to the Dutch bid for the 2028 OG. They will be operationalized in line with the procedure outlined by Semetko and Valkenburg (2000) as described above and further specified in the method section (see below).

First we turn to the (1) socio-economic controversy frame. A bid for the OG is mostly based on the idea of potential positive economic benefits, but also on the potential negative consequences that can lead to a debate in the media (Malfas et al., 2004). A positive impact is expected from spectators and the increasing tourism industry. Name recognition of the city by tourists can be stimulated by organising a mega event.7 Investments in infrastructure and sports facilities can make the city more attractive for businesses (Preuss & Solberg, 2006). Beside that there will be an temporary increase in employment, connected to infrastructural activities and the overall organisation of the OG. Potential negative impacts are high construction costs of sports 8

infrastructure and related investments, temporary crowding problems and property rental increases (Kasimati, 2003). Citizens will ask questions when the government spends public money on these kinds of projects.8 In this study the socio-economic controversy frame refers to the following aspects: (local) economy, tourism, event-related jobs, spending (public) money and the influence of an economic recession.

Next, we look at the (2) socio-cultural controversy frame. Strengthening of local pride is often seen as a potential positive factor. By organizing the OG a city can change its image.9 Beijing tried this in 2008, aiming to achieve an image as forward-looking world metropolis by building high-quality Olympic venues designed by famous architects (Broudehoux, 2007). But there can also be potential negative factors. The Chinese government decided to remove all the urban ‘ugliness’ before the OG and seventy local laws were created that made it possible to remove beggars, vagrants and citizens with a mental illness from the city. This had a negative influence on the city image (Smith & Himmelfarb, 2007). As a result of organising the OG an increase of local participation in sports is expected which can lead to general improvement in health of citizens (Coe, 1985, as cited in Moosa & Smith, 2004, p.288). However, the influence of sports on public health is not an issue without discussion, especially when it is also compared with the (financial) investments in sport facilities. In this study the socio-cultural controversy frame refers to the following aspects: participation in sport activities, strengthening of local pride and contribution to the image of the host city.

Now, we look at the (3) physical controversy frame. ‘Host’ cities will need to use an adequate environmental analysis during their planning of the OG to prevent collateral damage.10 It is often necessary to improve existing or construct new sports facilities, to stage multiple sports events in a short period of time. But what happens if these facilities cannot be used by the citizens of the host country and stay a burden for the taxpayers (Cashman, 2002)? Also optimizing infrastructure is of great importance to host the OG. The innovations associated with sporting facilities and infrastructure create investments in one metropolitan area. This can lead to confrontations with other regions about fewer infrastructure projects or possible delay of projects in those areas (Malfas et al., 2004). In this study the physical controversy frame refers to the following aspects: impacts on the environment, construction and use of sport facilities, infrastructural development and restriction of infrastructure projects to metropolitan areas.

Finally, we look at the (4) political controversy frame. One of the political factors is ‘corporatization’ of the OG organisation, caused by the increasing costs and high risks that are involved and by the necessity to have a more ‘business-like’ approach to the planning (Short, 2004). Business corporations see the organisation of the OG as an impulse for more business 9

opportunities (Cashman, 2002). A bid process is often called the ‘elite playground’ of corporate elites and local politicians, who are mobilized to stimulate local constructions, retail, tourist industries and infrastructure funding from higher levels of government (Malfas et al., 2004).

Usually business elites are the ones who try to promote and stimulate mega-events as the OG (Hall, 1994, as cited in Hiller, 2000, p.450). (Local) politicians sometimes experience conflicting pressures to represent taxpayers’ and profit-oriented interests. Politicians try to improve their political image by being associated with events like the OG. They develop public relations through contact with sporting authorities and commercial organisations that are involved in the event (Malfas et al., 2004). In this study the political controversy frame refers to the following aspects: involvement of organizations that decide on the bid, elite playground, conflicting pressures of politicians and taxpayers, political image and the games legacy.

The frames introduced above are assumed to play a role in the media coverage of the bid on the 2028 OG by the Netherlands. To answer the main research question, the following sub-question is posed: Which issue-specific news frames are used in Dutch national and regional newspaper coverage regarding the bid for the 2028 OG by the Netherlands?

Frame-building and the visibility of actors So far the primary focus in this theoretical section was on the presence of news frames in media.

But news frames do not just ‘arise’, it is a ‘building’ process, where frame-building refers to “the factors that influence the structural qualities of news frames” (De Vreese, 2005, p. 53). In addition to factors from within a media organization, the interaction between journalists, social elites and social movements are equally important (De Vreese, 2005).

To analyze the role of ‘actors’ who are involved in this process, a distinction is made between journalists who write news stories and actors who are visible in the newspaper articles.

Actors can be made visible in news articles in different ways: (1) journalists use actors inside their articles or (2) actors’ attempts to gain (more) attention and influence on the way an issue is framed in the media. Both will have influence on what news is about, but mostly the ‘actor’ takes the lead (Gans, 2004). Journalists have influence on how visible an actor will be and can determine the tone of the story (Strömbäck & Nord, 2006). They can use different actors as their source. “A message source may be a person, a group, an institution, an organization, or even a label that has a 10

favorable or unfavorable connotation for the message recipient” (Hass, 1988, as cited in Sundar & Nass, 2001, pp.53-54).

Actors provide the information that journalists need for news items (Strömbäck & Nord, 2006). They try to convince a journalist to portray an issue in a particular frame (Van Gorp, 2007), to cause a change or confirmation of public opinion. Actors try to attract media attention that allows them to put forth their desired frames (Callaghan & Schnell, 2001). They are advocates of certain frames, making it come across in the desired way to the public. For instance, members of a pro-bid organization try to ‘sell’ the bid to the management of several big companies, financial institutions and citizens of the Netherlands. The way the bid for the OG is undertaken can says something about the crucial political players (Andranovich et al., 2001). In an article several actors can be present at the same time and all try to influence the framing of the news (Entman, 2007).

The presence of actors and the interaction between journalists and actors are assumed to play a role in the way the bid on the 2028 OG is framed. To answer the main research question, the following sub-questions are posed: Which actors are involved in public debate about the bid in the different newspapers and what is the connection between actor presence and media framing?

In which way do journalists portray the bid for the 2028 OG by the Netherlands in their articles? and Which strategies do politicians and lobbyists of sport organizations use to convince journalists of ‘their’ side of the story regarding the bid?

Research methods

The research methods that are used are a media content analysis and in-depth interviews.

Content analysis A quantitative content analysis of frames used in Dutch newspapers on the bid for the 2028 OG was conducted from the moment the investigation started on how the organization of the OG 11

could best be set up (January 1th, 2006), till the beginning of the research phase of this study on December 31, 2011. A quantitative content analysis can be defined as “the systematic and replicable examination of symbols of communication, which have been assigned numeric values according to valid measurement rules and the analysis of relationships involving those values using statistical methods, to describe the communication, draw inferences about its meaning, or infer from the communication to its context” (Riffe, Lacy, & Fico, 2005, p. 25).

The study was carried out on a sample of news articles from national and regional Dutch newspapers. National (paid) newspapers dominate the newpaper market in and around the four largest cities in the Netherlands, regional newspapers throughout the rest of the country (Bakker & Scholten, 2009; Vasterman & Bakker, 2010). Four national daily newspapers - de Volkskrant, Algemeen Dagblad, De Telegraaf and NRC Handelsblad - and four regional newspapers - De Gelderlander, Dagblad van het Noorden, Noordhollands Dagblad and Het Parool - were included in the sample. The national newspapers were chosen because of their high rate of circulation in the Netherlands (Vasterman & Bakker, 2010). A difference can be made between quality and popular newspapers.11 In this sample De Volkskrant and NRC Handelsblad can be seen as ‘quality’ newspapers, while De Telegraaf and het Algemeen Dagblad are more known as ‘popular’ newspapers (Bakker & Scholten, 2009). Three of the regional newspapers were chosen because of their highest rates of circulation in the Netherlands (Cebuco, 2011). Het Parool has lower rates of circulation, but was added as city newspaper of the region Amsterdam, which covers in combination with AD (seen as important city newspaper for the region Rotterdam) both possible host cities for the 2028 OG in the Netherlands.

The sample was achieved using the online computer database LexisNexis. Within the database all articles that mentioned ‘Olympic Games’ or ‘Olympic Plan’ and ‘2028’ within the headline or lead paragraph were selected. This resulted in 489 articles, 300 from national and 189 from regional newspapers. Articles that mentioned the keywords ‘Olympic Games’ or ‘Olympic Plan’ and ‘2028’ in the headline or lead paragraph, but were only marginally related to the topic of organizing the 2028 OG were taken out of the sample after closer inspection.12 This led to a final sample of 427 articles.13 In Table 1 a description of the composition of the final sample of the eight Dutch newspapers is provided.

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Table 1

Data of the eight Dutch newspapers.

Newspaper (short)

Newspaper (full name)

Nfinal sample

De Volkskrant De Telegraaf NRC Handelsblad Algemeen Dagblad

48 103 45 60

National newspapers VK TG NRC AD

Total national newspapers

256

Regional newspapers DG DvhN NHD PL

De Gelderlander Dagblad van het Noorden Noord Hollands Dagblad Het Parool

42 52 30 47

Total regional newspapers

171

Total

427

The unit of analysis in this study was the individual news story published in a newspaper. The articles were analyzed by one coder, the author of this thesis. Because there was only one person involved in the coding an inter-coder reliability test was not possible.14 To measure the extent to which certain frames appear in the news articles a codebook was developed (see appendix A).

The codebook consists of four sections. The first section contains descriptive variables referring to various background components that are relevant to a news story (name of the newspaper, day when and section in which the article was published in the newspaper, the page on which the article was published and the length of the article). The second section contained variables as if the terms ‘OG’, ‘Olympic Plan’ or ‘2028’ appeared in the headline, the number of times it appeared in the article and actor(s) that were heard in the article.

The third section contains variables related to ‘generic news frames’. The operationalization by Semetko and Valkenburg (2000) was used to measure ‘generic news frames’ in the current study. In the content analysis, nineteen different variables measure the five different generic news frames: human interest frame, conflict frame, morality frame, attribution of responsibility frame and economic consequences frame.15 The fourth section of the Codebook is related to issue-specific news frames. The research of Malfas et al. (2004) was used to define four issue-specific news frames that are applicable to 13

arguments that are present in the news about the bid on the OG: socio-economic controversy frame, socio-cultural controversy frame, physical controversy frame and political controversy frame. The focus is on pro and contra arguments and for each ‘controversy frame’ indicators were formulated that refer to discussion on the bid in the four different areas. To measure the occurrence of the frames in the news yes (1) – no (0) categories were chosen, in line with the measurement for the generic frame indicators. Precise wording of the indicators for the specific frames can be found in appendix A. Seventeen different variables measure the issue-specific news frames that are present in the national and regional newspaper articles.

Data from the content analysis were evaluated and used to answer the first, second and third sub research questions of this study.

Measuring frames To investigate the extent to which the framing questions reflect underlying dimensions a confirmatory principal component analysis with varimax rotation is conducted. The factor solution of 36 framing questions showed that nine distinguishable frames can be subtracted. Items with factor loadings lower than .50 were deleted from the analysis. Only for the morality frame a factor loading of below .50 is adopted for the variable ‘Does the article contain any moral message?’.

The correlation between the morality frame without this variable (two indicators) and the morality frame with this variable included (three indicators) showed a high positive correlation of r = .819 (p < .001). Both resulting scales are thus largely similar and the morality frame consisting of three variables was used in the analysis. For the economic consequences frame, variables meant to measure issue-specific frames loaded on this scale. To make it possible to compare this study with previous research, the pre-existing frames of Semetko and Valkenburg (2000) are used in this study and other variables that loaded on the economic consequences frame were deleted from the analysis. Given the factor loadings, the variable ‘Does the article speak about visiting spectators and media-related advertisement that will have a positive or negative influence on the tourism industry in the Netherlands?’ initially expected to measure the socio-economic controversy frame unexpectedly turned out to be part of the physical controversy frame. The correlation between the physical controversy frame without this variable (three indicators) and the physical controversy frame with this variable included (four indicators) showed a very high positive correlation of r = .954 (p < .001). As a result of this, the physical controversy frame was re-labeled to better reflect the substantial meaning of all items that formed that factor. The new name of all items is the area 14

development controversy frame. Eventually16, the analysis showed a factor solution with 22 items loading onto six distinguishable frames, explaining 61.0 percent of the total variance. Each frame contained three or more variables (see appendix B). The existence of the socio-economic controversy, socio-cultural controversy and political controversy frame could not be demonstrated by this study or were not distinctive enough in comparison with the already existing generic news frames. However, the existence of one issue-specific news frame, namely the area development controversy frame (ADCF), was demonstrated and will be looked at in this study.

Cronbach’s alpha was used to measure the internal consistencies of the six scales. In social science a Cronbach’s alpha of .60 is the lowest value that can be accepted for a reliable scale, and a Cronbach’s alpha of .70 (or higher) is preferred (George & Mallery, 2003, as cited in Gliem & Gliem, 2003, p.87). The internal consistency scale of the human interest frame was

= .79, that of the conflict frame was

attribution of responsibility frame

= .81, the morality frame

= .60, the

= .78 and the economic consequences frame

the internal consistency scale of the area development frame was

= .68. And

= .61.

Only (low) positive correlations were found between the economic consequences and attribution of responsibility frame (r = .18 (p < .001), the area development controversy and attribution of responsibility frame (r = .10 (p < .05) and the area development controversy and economic consequences frame (r = .39 (p < .001). None of the other correlations were significant (see appendix C).

Multi-item scales were formed for variables that loaded on the same scale, which indicate the degree to which a frame was ‘not present’ (.00) or ‘present’ (1.00) in the articles.17

Measuring the visibility of actors The second section of the codebook looks at which ‘actors’ are present in the news articles. In the analyses the visibility of the different actors is covered and the question how prominent they are in newspapers is answered. The visibility of an actor is defined as the extent of coverage in an article that is devoted to an actor, including: amounts of words given to the actor in the news coverage, ordering of presentation and most cited. An actor is called most prominent when he is given greatest coverage in comparison with other visible actors in a news article. For each article, the three actors that were given the greatest coverage were coded and included in this study; in total 640 actors were coded.

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In-depth interviews Besides a content analysis, semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted from March to May 2012 with Dutch journalists, politicians and lobbyists of national sport organizations which were visible in the articles. In-depth interviews make use of open-ended questions, where the interviewer wants to gain more information from a specific set of people. A semi-structured approach has the advantage that a specific list of subject areas can be investigated and new questions can flow from previous responses (Guion, Diehl, & McDonald, 2006). Through these interviews the underlying thoughts and choices concerning the bid made by the main actors involved in the lobby and organizational process can be investigated. A disadvantage of this method can be the influence of a bias during the interview and in the analysis of transcripts (Lillis, 1999). To minimize this risk, an introduction of this study was provided before the interview, categories and questions were prepared in advance and the results were checked afterwards. Eight interviews were conducted, where a distinction was made between (four) journalists and (four) actors that were visible in the news articles.

From each national newspaper that was analyzed one journalist was interviewed. In the process of choosing which journalist of each newspaper was interesting to interview, there was looked at the authors that were most common in the articles of the content analysis as well as at the portfolios of different journalists. All journalists were main writers about the IOC and/or the OG. This selection resulted in: Henk Stouwdam of NRC, Hans Klippus of AD, John Volkers of VK and Bert Schaap of TG. For the interviews a guideline had been developed (see appendix D). The questions were related to the way journalists portray the bid and divided in three sections: (1) strategy, (2) position of the newspaper regarding the bid and (3) interaction between journalists and actors.

The first section, strategies, included questions about how much attention a newspaper gives to the bid, the heading under which it is published and the role of the newspaper in the bid process. The second section, position of the newspaper, included questions on general position of a newspaper towards the bid and differences between the news coverage of the different newspapers. The third section, interaction between journalists and actors, included questions about how the journalists received information on the bid, actors in the debate, advice on gaining more attention in their newspaper and thoughts about the start of the bid.

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Regarding the visible actors it was important to include persons who were prominent in the news coverage and represent different aspects of the debate. The content analysis showed that politicians and lobbyists from sports organizations were the most visible in the news articles concerning the bid. The main goal was to gain more insight in the way actors try to gain more attention and influence in the news coverage. In the selection of politicians, the decision was made to interview a representative of the biggest political party, a supporter of the bid. For the second political actor a logical next step was to opt for a member of the opposition party with a critical view on the bid. SP falls under this criteria. The politicians that are interviewed both have the portfolio â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;sportâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;: Bart de Liefde (VVD) and Renske Leijten (SP). Beside these politicians a representative of formal sports organizations was interviewed. Jan Willem Maass is board member of NOC*NSF with Olympisch Plan 2028 in his portfolio. In the process of choosing which person from the informal world of sports was most interesting to interview, is looked at the prominence of the actors, expressions of clear statements in the media regarding the bid and current activities in or around sport. This selection has led us to Cees Vervoorn.

For the interviews with politicians and representative of sport organisations no guideline was developed because of the different background of the actors interviewed. However, the questions of all four interviews were related to media strategies of these actors and divided in three sections: (1) position of the actor towards the bid, (2) debate on relevant issues according the bid and (3) interaction between journalists and actors.

Seven of the eight interviews were conducted face-to-face on various locations in the Netherlands.

The interview with Renske Leijten was, because of her busy schedule, conducted by telephone.

The interviews lasted between 45 minutes and 1 hour and 30 minutes. Data from the semistructured in-depth interviews were evaluated and used to answer the fourth and fifth sub research questions of this study (for an overview, see appendix E).

Results: Framing of the Dutch bid for the OG 2028

In this section the findings on the sub-questions of this study are discussed. In the first part, the results of the content-analysis will be presented, in which the prominence of different news frames in media coverage is looked at. Independent-sample t-tests and a one-way ANOVA are conducted to test for significant differences in the presence of the different frames in news coverage. The presence of actors in the news is determined by and related to the simultaneous presence of 17

frames. In the second part, the results of eight interviews held with four journalists and four societal actors that were visible in the news coverage will be presented. This section will discuss thoughts of journalists on the way they portray the bid in the newspapers and thoughts of societal actors on the strategies they use to convince the media of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;theirâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; side regarding the bid.

Content analysis The first and second sub-questions in this study are: Which generic and issue-specific news frames are used in Dutch national and regional newspaper coverage regarding the bid of the 2028 OG by the Netherlands?

There were only small differences in the visibility of most of the frames in the sample of the articles of national and regional newspapers. Only the morality frame was almost invisible in the sample, but this corresponds with the findings of Semetko and Valkenburg (2000); the morality frame seems to play a minor role in Dutch news coverage. In the sample the economic consequences frame was most visible, followed by the attribution of responsibility, human interest and conflict frame which nearly had the same mean scores. The analysis also made clear that one issue-specific frame (area development controversy frame) showed substantial prominence in newspaper coverage. Table 2 gives the average presence of all frames and for each newspaper.

Table 2

Mean score of the visibility of six frames in national and regional newspapers.

Newspaper

Human interest frame

Conflict frame

Morality frame

Attribution of responsibility frame

Economic consequences frame

National NRC VK AD TG

.22 (.32) .29 (.35) .27 (.32) .13 (.23) .23 (.34)

.22 (.34) .21 (.32) .16 (.30) .29 (.35) .20 (.35)

.01 (.08) .04 (.16) .01 (.05) .01 (.09) .00 (.00)

.24 (.31) .39 (.35) .19 (.28) .18 (.29) .22 (.30)

.30 (.35) .37 (.42) .36 (.33) .31 (.35) .24 (.32)

Area development controversy frame .21 (.26) .26 (.27) .24 (.30) .19 (.24) .17 (.26)

Regional DG DvhN NHD PL

.24 (.34) .15 (.32) .20 (.29) .43 (.41) .26 (.32)

.21 (.37) .10 (.30) .10 (.25) .21 (.40) .43 (.44)

.01 (.05) .00 (.00) .01 (.06) .02 (.08) .00 (.00)

.22 (.30) .13 (.27) .25 (.28) .29 (.37) .23 (.28)

.27 (.35) .19 (.30) .21 (.33) .23 (.33) .42 (.35)

.21 (.26) .19 (.25) .13 (.20) .25 (.25) .28 (.30)

Overall

.23 (.33)

.21 (.35)

.01 (.07)

.23 (.31)

.29 (.35)

.21 (.26)

Notes. The values between parentheses are the standard deviation.

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An independent-sample t-test was conducted to investigate if there was a difference in prominence of the different frames between articles published in national and regional newspapers. This t-test indicated that there was no significant difference (HIF: t(425) = .543, p >.05; CF: t(425) = -.106, p >.05; MF t(425) = -.370, p >.05; AoRF: t(425) = -.505, p >.05; ECF: t(425) = -1.107, p >.05 ; ADCF: t(425) = .022, p >.05). This suggests a very consistent way of framing the topic across national and regional media outlets.

A One-way ANOVA was performed to investigate whether the presence of the different news frames varied in the eight newspapers. In line with the mean scores reported in the table above, the results suggest that there were indeed significant differences between the newspapers with regard to the prominence of the human interest frame (F(7,419) = 3.19, p <.05), the conflict frame (F(7,419) = 4.84, p < .001), the attribution of responsibility frame (F(7,419) = 3.00, p < .05) and the economic consequences frame (F(7,419) = 2.95, p < .05). The human interest frame was least visible in AD and most visible in NHD. For the conflict and economic consequences frame the extremes least and most visible were both found in regional newspapers: the conflict frame was least visible in DG and DvhN and most visible in PL, the economic consequences frame was least visible in DG and most in PL. The presence of the attribution of responsibility frame varied across the media outlets from least in DG to most in NRC. The results also indicated no significant differences in prominence across outlets for the morality and area development controversy frame.18 Furthermore, a one-way ANOVA was conducted to investigate whether the presence of the different news frames only varied within the national newspapers.19 The results show that the human interest frame (F(3,252) = 2.64, p = .05) and the attribution of responsibility frame (F(3,252) = 4.90, p < .05) were unequally present in the different national newspapers. Both frames were mostly visible in the national quality newspaper NRC and least in the popular newspaper AD. With respect to the other news frames a significant difference in presence was not found.20 For the presence of the news frames within the regional newspapers another one-way ANOVA was conducted. The results confirmed statistically significant differences between the regional newspapers in the prominence of the human interest (F3,167) = 4.58, p <.05), conflict (F3,167) = 9.44, p <.05), economic consequences (F3,167) = 4.43, p <.05) and area development controversy frame (F3,167) = 2.95, p <.05). The human interest, conflict and economic consequences frame were least visible in DG. This suggests that media frames are not very common in DG. The conflict frame had an equally low visibility score in DvhN. Also the area development controversy frame was least visible in this regional newspaper. The conflict, 19

economic consequences and area development controversy frame were most visible in PL. The human interest frame was most present in NHD. With respect to the morality and attribution of responsibility frame no significant difference in visibility were detected between regional newspapers.21 These results show that despite the fact that a consistent way of framing the topic between national and regional newspapers was found, there are differences within national and regional newspapers.

All newspapers have a preference for a particular frame. In three of the four national newspapers (TG, VK and AD) the economic consequences frame was most visible, which means that in these newspapers the news coverage about the bid for the 2028 OG was initially a discussion about the financial and economic consequences of organizing the OG in the Netherlands. This corresponds with the findings of the cumulative sample of newspapers. Only the quality newspaper NRC directed more attention to the attribution of responsibility frame, which suggests that in this newspaper the news coverage was initially a discussion on who is held responsible for issues regarding the bid. Among the regional newspapers there are more differences visible in the most prominent frame used. In DG the economic consequences and area development controversy frame were most visible. In DvhN the attribution of responsibility frame was most visible, in NHD the human interest and in PL first the conflict frame but closely followed by the economic consequences frame. From these results we can conclude that at a national level the newspaper content with regard to the bid is mainly focused on economic consequences, and at a regional level the content focus varies per region.

The third sub question in this study was: Which actors are involved in public debate about the bid in the different newspapers and what is the connection between actor presence and media framing?

Looking at overall visibility, politicians were most visible in the articles (28.6%) of which a major part were members of PvdA (37.7%). A reason could be that the mayors of both candidate host cities (Amsterdam and Rotterdam) are representatives of this party during (most of) the period this study is conducted.22 At some distance members of VVD (22.4%) and the CDA (20.6%) followed.

These political parties were members of the government during the entire period (CDA) or parts of this study (VVD). The ChristenUnie (CU), Staatkundig Gereformeerde Partij (SGP) and Partij van de Dieren (PvdD) played no role in the Dutch news coverage concerning the bid. Besides politicians, representatives of NOC*NSF 23 (17.8%) and persons from a business environment 20

(12.8%) were also visible in the news coverage. Members of an anti-bid organization played only a minor role (0.3%).

Looking at most prominent actors in the news coverage, mainly politicians were found (25.6%) of whom 37.4 percent were a member of PvdA, 27.5 percent a member of CDA and 20.9 percent a member of VVD. They were followed in prominence by representatives of NOC*NSF (15.2%) and persons from a business environment (12.7%). Appendix F shows a detailed view of the frequencies of the different actors in this study.

Generally, it can be concluded that politicians are both most visible and prominent in the debate regarding the bid. It is clear that politicians from PvdA, VVD and CDA dominated the news coverage, accounting for 80.7 percent in visibility of all political actors an 85.8 percent as most prominent of all political actors.

Visibility of these actors was further investigated in combination with the occurrence of specific news frames. For this, the multi-item scales of the frames were re-coded so that when a minimum of half of the variables of the multi-item scales where coded ‘present’, the overall frame was considered to be ‘present’.24 Crosstab analyses were performed to examine the presence of the frames in combination with the visibility of the actors in the news coverage (see appendix G).25 Politicians are mostly observed in combination with the economic consequences frame (27.2%). This is also the case for two of the three most visible political parties in the news coverage (PvdA: 25.7%; CDA: 36.7%). The VVD, however, was most often mentioned in combination with the attribution of responsibility frame (24.6%). It seems they are held most responsible for issues concerning the bid. Not surprisingly, the SP, as ‘critical party’, was found mostly in combination with the conflict (33.3%) and economic consequences frame (29.1%).26 In general, politicians are less present in combination with the human interest frame (10.6%).

NOC*NSF is mostly visible in combination with the area development controversy frame (24.2%), followed by the economic consequences frame (22.7%). A possible reason could be that NOC*NSF, as promoter of the Olympic Plan, focuses on the direct impacts of the OG. Additionally, they also have to respond to all questions journalists have about organizing the OG in the Netherlands, even when it is not their favorite topic.

Persons from a business environment were mostly visible in combination with the area development controversy and human-interest frame (both 22.5%). This could indicate that they see advantages in organizing the OG through the construction of sport facilities,

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infrastructure and growing tourism industry or they are involved in a sport and talk about their own experience(s) in those articles.

The most visible actors in the news coverage for each frame were also considered. For the conflict, attribution of responsibility, economic consequences and area development controversy frame politicians (CF: 33.9%; AoRF: 31.1%; EQF: 36.7%; ADCF: 30.3%) were most found. Only within the human interest frame persons from a business environment were most present (17.8%), but also closely followed by politicians (17.2%). Besides NOC*NSF (14.7%), citizens/general public are/is also fairly visible for this frame (14.1%), which seems plausible because citizens are often used for individual stories to attach a human face to the issue.

Semi-structured in-depth interviews The fourth sub research question in this study was: In which way do journalists portray the bid for the 2028 OG by the Netherlands in their articles?

As we look at the way journalists give shape to news articles, they often use a (predefined) strategy. They portray an actual issue different as opposed to a topic like the bid, that has its (eventual) peak in fifteen years from now. Three of the (four) journalists that were interviewed agreed that they did not write much on the bid (yet) because the topic is not urgent and because of the uncertainty that is associated with the long-term planning of the event. Newspapers are mostly focused on what is happening ‘now’ in the world. Journalists seem sensitive about covering ‘striking events’.

“AD is good at ‘stress events’, such as for example the Elfstedentocht. In advance we didn’t know if this event would be held, but on Monday we decided to make an ‘attachment’ which had to be finished on Thursday for the paper on Saturday” (Hans Klippus, AD).

All newspapers indicate that making ‘actual news’ is the best opportunity for the pro-bid organization to generate more attention on the bid in their newspapers. The question is whether this would lead to more than incidental attention, because the Olympic Plan does not include remarkable and interesting events at the moment. Only VK mentioned that they already gave considerable attention, but also indicated that more attention will be devoted to

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the issue once the event comes closer. Due to the fact that the bid is still far away, it is difficult for journalists to adopt a clear strategy to portray the issue.

In the way journalists create news stories, they are dependent on the position of their editorial board concerning an issue. The editorial boards of newspapers do think about an (actual) issue, but newspapers mostly do not have a (clear) strategy. It seems that newspaper organizations still covers the issue ‘how it comes along’, which could mean that actors that are visible in the articles can exert much influence on the media.

In relation to the bid, the popular newspapers AD and TG mentioned to choose for a positive position, making it more likely for them to focus on the advantages of the bid. VK likes to be seen as independent on every subject, also concerning the bid. The position of the editorial board of NRC is to ‘inform’ citizens about the bid. In this line, the newspapers don’t see a specific role for themselves in the bid process; their main role is to ‘bring news’.

“As a newspaper, we have to be objective and businesslike. We can’t be part of the Olympic Plan, as we would not be able to remain neutral. If there is a subject on the bid we write about, we try to show the pros and cons of the subject” (Henk Stouwdam, NRC).

The interaction between journalists and their informants also affects the way a journalist portrays an issue. Previous research indicated that in most cases actors take the initiative (Gans, 2004).

Journalists and politicians use each other to generate ‘news’. When journalists shape an article, actors are important sources to gain more information. For information about the bid, all journalists attended to public meetings of NOC*NSF or Olympisch Vuur, but not every national newspaper is yet approached by interest groups. NRC and TG did not get approached. VK said NOC*NSF sometimes inquires about their services and AD gets approached as a Rotterdam oriented newspaper by local interest groups: “Topsport Rotterdam has contacted us in the past. They had the opinion that we didn’t write a lot about the bid in our newspaper. I have listened to their plans during a meeting. Personally, I am interested in the topic but afterwards you have to decide what you are going to do, do you find the topic interesting enough?” (Hans Klippus, AD).

The fifth sub research question in this study was: Which strategies do political parties and relevant national sport organizations use to convince media organizations of ‘their’ side of the story regarding the bid?

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Politicians If we look at the strategies of politicians to get attention for the bid, we see that both political parties interviewed have (still) a passive attitude towards the media. A reason for this could be the more negative attitude of the media about organizing the OG in the Netherlands at the moment.

The VVD tries to influence this attitude through background conversations with journalists where they indirectly provide input on a subject. SP agrees about the negative tone of the media.

However, where the VVD is a proponent of the Olympic Plan, the SP has a critical view: “We are proponents of the goals that are associated with the Olympic Plan, but are very critical on the bid itself. In our new election program, we will specify that we want to discontinue all preparation of the Olympic Plan/2028 OG. (…) Our opinion at the moment is ‘just stop for now’” (Renske Leijten, SP).

A strategy of the SP is to stress the unclear costs of the OG and the fact that withholding information on that subject by minister Schippers is emphasized in the media. The VVD wants to provide a clear picture of the opportunities and threats and does not agree with the way the costs associated with the bid are now portrayed in the media. They want to postpone this debate until the eventual decision on the bid will be made. Both parties pay due attention to the financial and economic consequences of a possible OG in the Netherlands.

When media do approach political parties, politicians always consider the ‘image’ a subject might give them and their party. They are careful with issues they don’t want to be associated with. SP also mentions that there is a direct interaction between press and politicians; journalists need information, but politicians also need the press at certain moments.

To conclude, the differences in opinion between the political parties lead to an unclear message to the citizens and media in the Netherlands. One of the problems for politicians is that it is not possible to capture the Olympic Plan for every government till 2016. The Cabinet VVD and CDA (with tolerance of the PVV) broke in April of 2012, new elections will be held in September of 2012. The compilation of a new Cabinet can affect the progress of the Olympic Plan. VVD is a proponent of the Olympic Plan, but already mentions that political parties have enough time to change their mind in the meantime. SP seems well on their way to become an opponent, as they think other topics in society are more important at the moment.

Lobbyists of sports organizations If we look at the media strategies of lobbyists of sport organizations regarding the bid a clear difference is discernible between lobbyists of formal sport organizations and lobbyists of informal 24

sport networks. The media strategy of NOC*NSF, lobbyist for formal sport organizations, is to show activities with various alliance partners in the press. They want to touch people emotionally and show the benefits of the Olympic Plan. Therefore Olympisch Vuur was established.

“You get more attention when you present many ideas. We want citizens of the Netherlands to feel the benefits of a possible OG by allowing them to see the benefits by themselves” (Geert Slot, NOC*NSF).

“This method is to touch people (emotionally) in their lives. But you don’t have to touch people for ten years in a row. You need to pick your moments” (Jan Willem Maas, NOC*NSF).

The attitude of formal sport actors is directed on having influence on all aspects of the organization of the Olympic Plan.

On the other hand Cees Vervoorn, lobbyist of a informal sport network, does not have a ‘real’ media strategy, but responds on demand and on what is happening on the OG issue. His role as participant of the OG in various roles and his outspoken opinion makes him popular with journalists who come for ‘quotes’ regarding the bid. In these interviews he tries to emphasize the connection between the Olympic Plan, health issues and the importance of stimulating children to exercise more often. The attitude of informal sports actors is more open and responses to the media are especially focused on emphasizing the interests of sports making the image that are connected with the responds less important.

Part of a media strategy is also the way an organization responds to topics they would rather not see in the media but where the actor itself has no effect on. They are expected to respond to, for example, the choice of the host city and the economic consequences of hosting the OG. NOC*NSF does not like that these topics are so prominent in the news at the moment: “It is impossible to hold an economic discussion during an economic crisis. That’s why you should not do so. It is a non-discussion, there is no money spent at the moment. The ‘real’ money will (maybe) be spend in 2021” (Jan Willem Masss, NOC*NSF).

NOC*NSF would like to postpone the debate on this subject and tries to push public opinion in another direction so they can see the possible advantages of Olympic Plan. The main point of interest is to demonstrate the benefits of exercising more often to all levels of society. NOC*NSF also conclude that the resonance in the media is not great, and therefore use their own media channels or search for other channels to reach the public. Cees Vervoorn responds to these issues by always pointing to the importance of sports in society and choices that have to be made to increase the probability that the OG will be designated to the Netherlands by the IOC.

25

To conclude, lobbyists of formal sports organizations speak for a whole organization. They are promoters of the Olympic Plan and are asked to respond on - in the eyes of the media important issues. At the moment, this drives them in the corner of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;mainly respondingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;.

Lobbyists of informal sport networks represent the world of sports, where the discussion on sport and health are the main focus.

Conclusion and discussion

In this section the main research question will be answered. Also the limitations of this study are given and some recommendations for further research are proposed.

The main research question of this study was: In which way do Dutch national and regional newspapers frame (the preparation of) the bid for the 2028 OG by the Netherlands during the first two phases of the bid process, and to what extent are there connections between the main actors involved in the public debate and the frames used in the news coverage?

Research on generic-news frames has shown that the extent of visibility of the frames depends on the subject discussed (An & Gower, 2009; De Vreese et al., 2001; Dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Haenens & De Lange, 2001). The newspaper coverage on the bid for the 2028 OG by the Netherlands was mostly framed in terms of economic consequences. Previous research showed that economic consequences have always been an important topic in relation to the organization of the OG (Kasimati, 2003; Madden, 2002; Preus, 2004). After the economic consequences frame the most common frames were, in order of prominence, attribution of responsibility, human interest and conflict frame. This study also introduces an issue-specific frame, the area development controversy frame, which could be distinguished from the pre-existing frames of Semetko and Valkenburg (2000). This frame played a considerable role in the newspaper coverage around the bid.

Semetko and Valkenburg (2000) indicated that the occurrence of the economic consequences frame was dependent on the quality or popular nature of national newspapers.

The current study supports this notion and also found that the higher the quality of the national newspaper, the more frequent the economic consequences frame was used. This also

26

applied for the area development controversy frame: the higher the quality of the national newspaper, the more frequent the area development controversy frame was used.

The debate on the possible financial and economic consequences of organizing the OG in the Netherlands is overshadowing the newspaper coverage on the bid. Especially at a national level the majority of journalists concentrate on budget discussions: what are the investments during the bid period and what has to be invested in the future? Thereto (national) politicians are by far the most visible and prominent actors in articles on the bid and mostly found in combination with this frame. A crucial question is who takes the lead in this framing.

There seems to be a direct interaction between journalists from national newspapers who portray the economic consequences frame and national politicians that emphasize the frame.

They meet regularly on press conferences about the national budget and most discussion about the subjects on OG 2028 are held within that context. Even at a regional level, the overall focus is on economic consequences, but the framing varies per region and other ‘angles’ seem present. Striking is that both the local newspaper PL, stationed in the possible ‘host city’ Amsterdam, and the national newspaper AD, that is linked to the other possible ‘host city’ Rotterdam, mainly focus on conflict and economic consequences. This indicates that they are curious about the possible financial consequences of their city.

The attribution of responsibility and human interest frame were both the second common frame in the news coverage regarding the bid. The attribution of responsibility frame is a little more visible in national newspapers, where the human interest frame is a bit more visible in regional newspapers. Politicians are the most visible and prominent actors found in combination with the attribution of responsibility frame. This assumes that politicians are mostly held responsible for causing or solving issues regarding the bid. Uncertainty regarding the issue by journalists and differences in opinion between political parties can also have led to the designation of responsibilities. Persons from a business environment were visible in combination with the human interest frame, but politicians were also prominent in combination with this frame. Businessmen are heard in the newspaper about their participation and interests in the OG. They probably see potential economic benefits in organizing the OG through investments in the constructions of sport facilities, infrastructure and a growing tourism industry.

This interaction between journalist and (national) politicians bring actors who try to show the OG within another news frame in a difficult position. The lobbyist from formal sports organizations and informal sports networks try to emphasize subjects concerning sports and health, despite that they are far less visible in the newspaper coverage. Especially 27

NOC*NSF has, in the direction of the broader media (TV / social media), a more human interest approach, concentrating on the personal experience and emotions of athletes and their public. Nevertheless when asked, they have to respond to discussions in the newspapers that especially return to economic consequences regarding the bid, which makes their own substantive arguments fade in comparison. The frame of economic consequences makes the public consider costs and financial implications more often (Valkenburg et al., 1999; De Vreese, 2004). At the moment it seems that sport lobbyists cannot give much direction to the newspaper framing. A question they have to answer for themselves is how important newspapers still are for them and whether sport lobbyists can influence the way of framing by journalists? A consequence of the close connection between politicians and journalists might be that these lobbyists have to shift their attention from national newspapers to other media.

A condition of IOC in the designation of the ‘host city’ is public support among the population. Newspapers can be an important instrument to inform the public about the bid.

Research on framing effects showed that understanding and beliefs of the public can be affected by the way an issue is framed in the media. Nevertheless newspapers mostly look at topics that take place here and now, and are less interested in ‘news’ about future events.

That’s one of the reasons journalists are less interested in the factual organization of the OG in 2028 and more in the current political discussions about (future) budgets involved. An alternative strategy for organizations like NOC*NSF could be to ’create’ more actual and ‘tangible’ topics regarding the bid. This could for example be a visible connection with 2012 OG in London.

The present study advises to investigate further in the direction of the interaction between actors and journalist regarding the frames used in the news coverage on a bid on the OG. Who is leading in the interactions between actors and journalists? It would also be interesting to examine the influence of the presence of the frames on public support for the OG. In this study suggestions are given to the effect of frames on public opinion, but the public opinion is not measured in this study. Besides, the visibility of the issue-specific area controversy frame could be looked at in the press of other countries on a possible bid of their countries for the OG, to verify the presence of this frame and to be able to compare these finding with this study. Last, research could be directed towards the differences in the presence of the frames regarding the bid between media outlets. It would be interesting to investigate if combinations of frames and actors vary by media outlet.

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There are limitations and shortcomings to be acknowledged concerning this study.

First, the method used for a deductive approach of the content analysis looks for frames that are measured with questions that are known before. Matthes and Kohring (2008) indicate that this method can be inflexible for the research on new emerging frames. However, the issuespecific frame in this study was investigated and found by a deductive approach. Nevertheless only tentative conclusions can be drawn regarding the issue-specific frame given its nonapplicability to other topical contexts. Thereby the results of this study regarding the issuespecific frame cannot be generalized.

Second, when investigated whether actors were visible in combination with the occurrence of news frames there is chosen for: when a minimum of half of the variables of the multi-item scales where coded ‘present’, the overall frame was considered to be ‘present’.

There are other methods available, that could have led to different findings. Finally, the percentage agreement used for the intercoder reliability check is an imperfect assessment.

These limitations notwithstanding the current study does contribute to the literature of framing studies. The new found issue-specific frame is a potential addition applicable to similar contexts in different settings. This study also provides a better understanding of the contents of news media coverage of the bid on the 2028 OG.

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Notes 1

) When mentioning the 2028 Olympic Games, is hereby in this whole study referred to both

the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

2

) The cities have to be approved by their own National Olympic Committee (NOC) and

introduced to the IOC by the competent public authorities of the ‘applicant city’. Applicant cities and/or their respective NOC have to pay an acceptance fee (150.000 US dollars) to the IOC and are required to sign the ‘candidature acceptance procedure’ (IOC, 2010, 2011).

3

) For all applications the following criteria will be looked at: the potential of the applicant cities

to host, organize and stage a successful OG and if the Olympic Charter, the IOC Code of Ethics, the Rules of conduct for Olympic cities, the World Antidoping Code, and the ‘candidate acceptance procedure’ are pursued. After accepting a city may call itself ‘applicant city’ the IOC offers them a range of services documents / information of the IOC for applicant cities; protection of the word mark ‘[City][Year when the OG will take place]’ outside the national territory of the applicant city; access to IOC’s OG Knowledge Management program; and participation in the IOC Applicant City information seminar (IOC, 2011).

4

) Candidate cities have to pay a 500.000 US dollars fee and are required to submit the

Candidature File, an in-depth description of their Olympic project to the IOC. This description is based on a (second) IOC questionnaire which focuses among others on political and economic climate and structure, legal aspects, customs and immigration formalities, environment, finance and marketing, media operations, the Paralympic Games and infrastructural aspects (e.g., safety and security; accommodation; transport; technology). The candidate cities will be examined and visited separately by an Evaluation Commission of the IOC. An evaluation report is made and introduced to all IOC members. Each candidate City makes a presentation to the IOC Session (IOC, 2010).

5

) Just before the end of this study, De Volkskrant publiced an article that indicated that a

partnership between Amsterdam and Rotterdam is established, where Amsterdam would be the official ‘host city’ and Rotterdam the partner city (Volkers, 2012).

6

) The Cabinet decided to conduct two further surveys. One looked at the possible integration

of the facilities needed for the OG in the Netherlands. The second survey explored the social costs and benefits of organizing the OG. The aim was to create an initial picture of the major costs carriers and dominant income benefits (Schippers & Schultz van Haegen, 2011). Direct costs include the investments that are needed for Olympic facilities, infrastructure, technology 30

and security. Direct benefits are tourism, ticket sales, rights to broadcasting and sponsorship programs (Blok et al., 2011). The Cabinet also made 13.5 million euro available for the period 2009 to 2011 to support and invest in the Olympic ambitions (Bussemaker, 2009).

7

) By contrast, before the 2004 OG in Athens, a decline in the volume of tourism in Greece

was seen several years before because of (the fear of tourists to find) renovation work of city attractions (Malfas et al., 2004).

8

) Montréal declared a considerable financial deficit after organizing the 1976 OG. After these

OG, it took some times before other cities dared to bring a bid on the future OG because of the financial disastrous impacts (Barton, 2004).

9

) By organising the 1992 OG, the local identity of Barcelona has developed in line with the

developed concept of ‘city of culture’ that was a distinction within Spain (Garciá & Miah, 2005).

10

) A ‘big issue’ has arisen before the 2008 OG in Beijing, because between 25 and 40 per

cent of all mercury emission in the world came from China. And the World Wildlife Fund described China as the largest polluter of the Pacific Ocean, while Beijing promised a ‘green’ Olympics. This discussion resulted in ‘green’ planted trees, harmful factories halted production or were moved outside the city borders during the OG. The Chinese authorities also banned one million cars from the city streets (Economy, 2007). But when all the cars came back after the OG, what does this mean for the long-term effect on the environment?

11

) ‘Quality’ newspapers are newspapers that publish relatively much (political) information

and little of entertainment, and ‘popular’ newspapers publish relatively a lot of entertainment and little (political) information (Bakker & Scholten, 2009).

12

) For example, a story in which a single reference is made to the 2028 OG and the topic is

mainly about the 2012 OG in London was deleted from the sample. In this case, the event was only referred to as an example that the Netherlands probably wants to organise it.

13

) The average length of the articles was 437.05 words (SD = 375.47). These articles were

placed in the section sport (45.2%), regional (14.8%), national (10.8), opinion and debate (4.9%), culture (1.4%), economy (1.2%) or on the front page (0.5%). A number of articles were placed in a different section than previous mentioned (8.0%) or it is unknown in which section they were published (13.3%). This lead to an average page number of 19.14 (SD = 29.87). In more than half (51%) of the articles the terms ‘OG’, ‘Olympic Plan’ or ‘2028’

31

appeared in the headline and the average amount that these terms appeared in the articles was 4.79 (SD = 3.99).

14

) A (little) intercoder reliability check was done based on then randomly selected articles on

concerning the bid. Two other persons coded the articles on basis of the second, third and fourth section of the codebook used in this study. Percentage agreement in coding between the first (author of this thesis) and second coder was 82.5% (33/40), and between the first and third coder was 87.5% (35/40). For the interpretations of these percentages, a reliability agreement of above 80 percent is adopted. These findings show that all the percentages were above the reliability limit. And thus was agreement between the different coders was adopted.

Nonetheless, there should be noted that percentage agreement is an imperfect assessment method of reliability.

15

) One of the variables that measures the human interest frames is ‘visual information that might

generate feelings of outrage, empathy-caring, sympathy, or compassion’. This variable is paying attention to images that are seen by the eye. Because the focus in this study is on the content of the articles, this variable is not included in the research.

16

) One variable of the conflict frame was deleted from the analysis: ‘Does the story refer to

winners and losers?’. Four variables of the socio-economic controversy frame were deleted: ‘Does the article discuss potential positive or negative impacts on the local economy when (the bid on) the OG will be realised?’, ‘Does the article discuss the event-related job creation on unemployment rates of the host region?’, Does the article discuss if the (public) ‘money’ is well or not well spend by bidding for the OG? And does it discuss that state and federal governments will use public money to organise the event?’ and ‘Does the article make a link between de current economic recession and the possibility that this will have a negative influence on organising the OG?’. All three variables of the socio-cultural controversy frame were deleted: ‘Does the article suggest the increase of local interest and participation in sport activities?’, ‘Does the article emphasize that regional traditions and values, local pride and community spirit can be strengthen by organising the OG?’ and ‘Does the article speaks about the contribution (or transforming) to the image of the host city in other countries?’. One variable of the physical controversy frame was deleted: ‘Does the article mention that if infrastructure project are placed in one (metropolitan) area, this often results in fewer infrastructure projects in suburban areas and in other regions?’. All five variables of the political controversy frame were deleted: ‘Does the article discuss the organisations that are involved in the decision to bid for the OG: local and regional government, business 32

corporations, ...?’, ‘Does the article discuss the fact that the OG are seen as a ‘elite playground’ of corporate elites and local politicians?’, ‘Does the article mention conflicting pressures by politicians to taxpayers’ interests and profit-oriented interest on the other?’, ‘Does the article include a political actor that tries to improve their political image by associating themselves with the event?’ and ‘Does the article discuss positive or negative consequences of the ‘Games legacy’?’.

17

) For the human interest frame this indicates the degree to which “the story puts a human

face on the issue or problem, sometimes employing personal vignettes or other characteristics that may generate strong feelings on the part of the reader” (Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000, p.101). For the conflict frame this indicates the degree to which “the story reflects disagreement between parties, groups or countries or refers to two or more sides of an issue” (p.101). For the morality frame this indicates the degree “the story contains a moral message or made reference to morality, God, or religious tenets” (p.101). For the attribution of responsibility frame this indicates the degree “the story suggests that some level of government has the ability to alleviate, or is responsible for causing, a certain issue or problem” (p101) or the problem requires urgent action (p.100). For the economic consequences frame this indicates the degree “the story mentioned financial losses or gains or the degree of expense involved” (p.101). For the area development controversy fame this indicates the degree the story mentions visiting spectators and media-related advertisement that will influence the tourism industry, additional environmental problems, and opportunities for construction of new sport facilities or infrastructural development.

18

) There was no significant difference found in the prominence of the morality frame (F(7,419) =

1.61; p >.05) and area development controversy frame (F(7,419) = 1.90, p > .05).

19

) To see if there are differences in the presence of frames within the sample of the regional

newspapers and within national newspapers the variable ‘newspaper’ is recoded into different variables containing only regional newspapers or only national newspapers.

20

) There was no significant difference found in the prominence of the conflict frame (F(3,252) =

1.47, p > .05), morality frame (F(3,252) = 2.15, p>.05), economic consequences frame (F(3,252) = 2.07, p > .05) and area development controversy frame (F(3,252) = 1.56, p > .05).

21

) There was no significant difference found in the prominence of the morality frame (F(3,167) =

1.71, p >.05), attribution of responsibility frame (F(3,167) = 1.96 , p >.05).

33

22

) Mayors of Amsterdam from 2006 till 2011: Job Cohen (2001 –2010; PvdA), Lodewijk Asscher

(2010; PvdA) and Eberhard van der Laan (2010 - today; PvdA). Mayors of Rotterdam from 2006 till 20011: Ivo Opstelten (1999-2008; VVD) and Ahmed Aboutaleb (2009 – today; PvdA).

23

) When mentioning NOC*NF, is hereby in this whole study referred to representatives of

NOC*NSF or a federation affiliated to NOC*NSF. 24

) For the Human Interest frame and the area development controversy frame at least two of

the four variables had to be coded as ‘present’ (which gives .00 to .49 for ‘not present’ and .50 to 1.00 for ‘present’). For the conflict frame, the morality frame and the economic consequences frame at least two of the three variables must be positive (.00 to .65 for ‘not present’ and a degree of .66 to 1.00 for ‘present’) and for the attribution of responsibility at least three of the five variables had to be positive (.00 to .59 for ‘not present’ and .60 to 1.00 for ‘present’).

25

) With the use of crosstabs, I only asses simultaneous occurrence of actors and news frames.

These analysis does not allow us to conclude that these actors either ‘use’ or ‘cause’ these frames.

26

) SP tries to push the debate in the direction of the economic consequences that are related to

the possible organization of the 2028 OG by the Netherlands (see interview 8 with Renske Leijten).

34

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Appendix A: Codebook

Section 1: Background information on the article V1: Newspaper Code The type of newspaper is based on which kind of newspaper initially published the article.

1 = De Volkskrant 2 = De Telegraaf 3 = NRC Handelsblad 4 = Algemeen Dagblad 5 = De Gelderlander 6 = Dagblad van het Noorden 7 = Noordhollands Dagblad 8 = Het Parool V2: Article day The date of publication of the analyzed article. For instance, the 5th of March 2011 is coded as 05.03.2011.

V3: Section The section in which the article is published in the newspaper.

1 = National 2 = Foreign 3 = Culture 4 = Economy 5 = Sport 6 = Science 7 = Opinion and debate 8 = Front page 9 = Region / local news 10 = None of the above

43

V4: Article on page The page of the newspaper on which the article is published.

V5: Length of article Coded in the amount of words. For instance, 500 words.

Section 2: Headline, extent of the discussion and actors V6: ‘OG 2028’/ ‘OP 2028’ in headline Does one of the terms ‘OG’, ‘OP’ or ‘2028’ appear in the headline of the article?

0 = No 1 = Yes V7: ‘OG 2028’/’OP 2028’ in the article The number of times the terms ‘2028 OG’ or ‘Olympic Plan 2028’ appears in the article.

If OG or OP is displayed in the same sentence with the year 2028, this counts as one appearance. But if OG, OP or 2028 (that refers to the 2028 OG) is mentioned alone in the sentence this also counts as one appearance.

V8a: Actor Which person/group/party is heard in the article?

Several answers are possible. Note the three most important actors and put them in order of prominence. Prominence of the actor can be defined as ‘the length that is devoted to the specific actor in the whole article’.

1 = Journalist 2 = Citizens / General public 3 = Members of the ‘bid’ organisation 4 = Anti-‘bid’ organization 5 = Celebrities 6 = Politicians of a political party 7 = the Cabinet (as a whole) / (local) governments / municipalities 8 = Royal family 9 = IOC 44

10 = NOC*NSF / representatives of a sport federation affiliated to NOC*NSF 11 = Representatives of a sport federation not affiliated to NOC*NSF 12 = Person submitted out of business 13 = Research(er) 14 = Other If at V8a ‘politicians of a political’ party is chosen. Answer V12b.

V8b: Actor as political party From which (national represented) political party is this politician a member? / Which (national represented) political party is heard in the article?

1 = VVD 2 = PvdA 3 = CDA 4 = SP 5 = D66 6 = PVV 7 = GroenLinks 8 = ChristenUnie 9 = SGP 10 = Partij van de Dieren 11 = Other

Section 3: Generic news frames The following questions are based on Semetko and Valkenburg (2000).

They can only be answered with no (0) or yes (1).

1. Human interest frame HI1: Human example Does the story provide a human example or ‘human face’ on the issue?

HI2: Personal vignettes Does the story employ adjectives of personal vignettes that generate feelings of outrage, empathy-caring, sympathy, or compassion?

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HI3: Affected Does the story emphasize how individuals and groups are affected by the bid for the OG by the Netherlands?

HI4: Private Does the story go into the private or personal lives of the actors?

2. Conflict frame C1: Disagreement Does the story reflect disagreement between parties/individuals/groups?

C2: Reproach Does one party/individual/Group reproach another?

C3: Two sides Does the story refer to two sides or to more than two sides of the problem or issue?

C4: Winner/Losers Does the story refer to winners and losers?

3. Morality frame M1: Moral message Does the article contain any moral message?

M2: (Religious) tenets Does the story make references to morality, God, and other religious tenets?

M3: Prescriptions Does the story offer religious social prescriptions about how to behave?

4. Attribution of responsibility frame AR1: Alleviate by government Does the story suggest that some level of government has the ability to alleviate the problem?

AR2: Responsibility government Does the article suggest that some level of the government is responsible for the issue/problem?

AR3: Solutions Does the story suggest solution(s) to the problem/issue?

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AR4: Responsibility people Does the story suggest that an individual/group/people in society is responsible for the issue/problem?

AR5: Urgent action Does the story suggest the problem requires urgent action?

5. Economic consequences frame EC1: Financial losses / gains Is there a mention of financial losses or gains now or in the future?

EC2: Expenses Is there a mention of the costs/degree of expense involved?

EC3: Economic consequences Is there a reference to economic consequences of pursuing or not pursuing a course of action?

Section 4: Issue-specific news frames The following questions show issue-specific news frames on controversies that were used to argue for or against the bid on the OG. The various frames are based on the article of Malfas, Theodoraki and Houlihan (2004). The questions can only be answered with no (0) or yes (1).

1. Socio-economic controversy frame SE1: Local economy Does the article discuss potential positive or negative impacts on the local economy when (the bid on) the OG will be realised?

SE2: Tourism â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Does the article speak about visiting spectators and media-related advertisement that will have a positive or negative influence on the tourism industry in the Netherlands?â&#x20AC;&#x2122; SE3: Job creation Does the article discuss the event-related job creation on unemployment rates of the host region?

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SE4: Spending (public) money Does the article discuss if the (public) â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;moneyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; is well or not well spend by bidding for the OG? And does it discuss that state and federal governments will use public money to organise the event?

SE5: Economic recession Does the article make a link between de current economic recession and the possibility that this will have a negative influence on organising the OG? 2. Socio-cultural controversy frame SC1: Sport activities Does the article suggest the increase of local interest and participation in sport activities?

SC2: Strengthening local pride Does the article emphasize that regional traditions and values, local pride and community spirit can be strengthen by organising the OG? SC3: Contribution image host city Does the article speak about the contribution (or transforming) to the image of the host city in other countries?

3. Physical controversy frame Ph1: Environment Does the article discuss additional environmental problems which organising the OG will bring to the Netherlands?

Ph2: Sport facilities Does the article emphasize the possible opportunities for construction of new sport facilities?

And/or the possibility that after the OG sport facilities will not be used?

Ph3: Infrastructure Does the article speak about infrastructural development which aims to improve the physical appearance of the host city?

Ph4: Metropolitan area Does the article mention that if infrastructure project are placed in one (metropolitan) area, this often results in fewer infrastructure projects in suburban areas and in other regions?

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4. Political controversy frame Po1: Business corporations Does the article discuss the organisations that are involved in the decision to bid for the OG: local and regional government, business corporations, ...?

Po2: Elite playground Does the article discuss the fact that the OG is seen as an ‘elite playground’ of corporate elites and local politicians?

Po3: Conflicting pressures Does the article mention conflicting pressures by politicians to taxpayers’ interests and profitoriented interest on the other?

Po4: Political image Does the article include a political actor that tries to improve their political image by associating themselves with the event?

Po5: Games Legacy Does the article discuss positive or negative consequences of the ‘Games legacy’?

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Appendix B Varimax-Rotated Factor Solution for the generic and issue-specific news framing items.** Factors* Variable HI1 HI2 HI3 HI4

1

2 .87 .87 .61 .76

C1 C2 C3

3

4

5

.90 .83 .80 .47^ .91 .93

M1 M2 M3 AR1 AR2 AR3 AR4 AR5

.71 .75 .83 .58 .76

EC1 EC2 EC3

.77 .70 .77

SE2 PH1 PH2 PH3 Notes.

6

.50 .63 .73 .73 *N = 427. ^

** Factor loadings

.50 are not included in the table.

Only for this variable a factor loading below .50 was adopted in this study.

Appendix C Correlations between frames used in this study

HIF CF MF AoRF ECF ADCF Notes.

HIF 1 .009 .058 -.044 -.009 .047

CF

MF

AoRF

ECF

ADCF

1 .024 .038 .082 .021

1 .051 -.045 -.052

1 .180** .101*

1 .386**

1

* p < .05 ** p < .001.

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Appendix D Guideline In-depth interviews Journalists

Strategy 1. How much attention does your newspaper in general give to the bid?

2. Is news around the bid published under the heading ‘sport’ or as a wider societal discussion?

3. Does your newspaper have a role in the bid process?

Position of the newspaper regarding the bid 4. Does your newspaper have a ‘general position’ relative to the bid? And therefore do you try to push the public in a particular direction?

5. Is there any difference in news coverage around the bid between your newspaper and other Dutch newspapers? (For some journalists the newspapers that they both worked for).

Interaction between journalists and actors 6. How do you receive information on the bid? Does your newspaper get approached by different groups to write about the bid?

7. Which actors are active in the debate on the bid?

8. Which advice can you give the pro-bid organization to get more attention in your newspaper?

9. Do you think the Netherlands started too early with the promotion of the possibility to organize the bid?

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Appendix E Interviews on media framing with journalists and actors Interview 1: Henk Stouwdam Background variables: Name journalist: Henk Stouwdam Newspaper: NRC Handelsblad Function: reporter sports with portfolio IOC. Date: February 22, 2012 Strategy How much attention does your newspaper give to the bid?

For a newspaper it is not important whether the OG will be hosted by the Netherlands. If it is organized in this country we will give more attention to the issue. But we write about the OG anyhow.

Currently we don’t give a lot of attention to the subject, because everything is still vague.

What does the ‘Olympic Plan’ mean with bringing the whole society to ‘Olympic level’? They organize little events to promote the Olympic Plan. In this period they mainly try to make the public more interested. We discuss the main points. For example, we report on research about the measurement of the acceptance among the population, reactions from the national (or local) government(s) about the bid or the presentation of Olympisch Vuur. Besides the presentation of Camiel Eurlings as chairman of the Olympisch Vuur it is silent around him. Where is Eurlings at the moment and what is he doing? In proportion we might write less about the bid than other national newspapers. Besides ‘IOC’ I write about other subjects and I often ask myself: ‘Is the news interesting enough for the readers?’

Every correspondent of NRC is allowed to write about the bid. But I am the only journalist that has ‘IOC’ in his portfolio. Journalists of NRC talk with each other about the OG before writing an article, making no duplicate articles are published in the newspaper.

Is news around the bid published under the heading ‘sport’ or as a wider societal discussion?

The articles around the OG are mainly social oriented, there is no ‘sports’ on this issue at the moment. But the eventual discussion around the bid is about sports, so therefore it is set in the sport section.

Position of the newspaper regarding the bid Does NRC have a role in the bid process?

There is no special role for NRC in the bid process. As a newspaper, we have to be objective and businesslike. We can’t be part of the Olympic Plan, because we would not be able to remain neutral. If there is a subject on the bid we write about, we try to show the pros and cons.

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Does NRC have a ‘general position’ relative to the bid? And therefore do you try to push the public in a particular direction?

No. We just write about it. We discuss this with each other and with the chef sport of NRC where to write about. Before we start we ask ourselves: ‘Is the subject interesting enough to publish about?’. And afterwards: ‘Did the article become as we expected it to be?’. The department of final editing reads all the articles and checks if the issue discussed in the article is interesting enough.

Is there any difference in news coverage around the bid between NRC and nrc.next?

Nrc.next and NRC are in practice the same newspaper. Nrc.next is allowed to use articles of NRC, but has its own editorial. Their angle is a little bit different. They focus on a younger public, making them look more ‘ahead’. They portray news in a more ‘popular’ way. Sometimes they ask me to write an article with a particular angle, but they also use the articles of NRC. Interaction between journalists and actors How do you receive information on the bid? Does NRC get approached by different groups to write about the bid?

No, we are not approached by lobbyists. But we go to press conferences of NOC*NSF. When there is a discussion on a relevant subject, we write about it.

Which actors are active in the debate on the bid?

Mainly persons from the world of sport organizations and business environments are proponents of the bid. Because it is still early in the process, there are not many persons heavily ‘against’ it yet. But political parties, like the SP and Christen Unie, are critical. They ask themselves: ‘Are the OG important enough for the whole society?’. Arie Slob (group chairman of CU) said we should not have started at organizing a bid.

Which advice can you give the pro-bid organization to get more attention in NRC? First of all, choose a host city as soon as possible. This must be Amsterdam, because of the international fame of the city. Second, choose a person that leads the bid and who works well together with our only member of IOC, prince Willem-Alexander. When the prince becomes King this spot must be inherited by a young and skillful person. He must be young, because the prince has a permanent position which means that you are part of the ICO board till you become seventy years old. Persons that are suitable for this job: Pieter van den Hoogenband, Richard Krajicek or Esther Vergeer. It is important to lobby inside the IOC. Third, a spin-doctor must be appointed who focuses on international relations. The bid organization must be transparent; they have to show their plans. Explain what the benefits and consequences are for society? What are the benefits after hosting the OG? They have to ‘sell’ the bid. Personally I would like to see the OG hosted by the Netherlands. But I think that we never will. We are not good enough in lobbying at the IOC. Do you think the Netherlands started too early with the promotion of the possibility to organize the bid?

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This discussion is very prominent at the moment. I am not sure. Maybe strategic we started too early. But if there is no acceptance among the population, there will be no support at all.

Interview 2: Hans Klippus Background variables: Name journalist: Hans Klippus Newspaper: het Algemeen Dagblad (AD) Function: reporter sports with portfolio IOC and different Olympic Sports.

Date: March 13, 2012 Strategy How much attention does your newspaper give to the bid?

The eventual Olympic bid is still far away. If an event is about to happen we discuss how we want to portray it in our newspaper. We didn’t do this (yet) with the bid for the 2028 OG. AD is good at ‘stress events’, such as for example the Elfstedentocht. In advance we didn’t know if the event would be held, but on Monday we decided to make an ‘attachment’ for the paper on Saturday.

Finally it was not possible to organize the ‘tour’ this year, but the attachment is ready for the possible organization of the event next year.

We go to meetings like the Olympisch Vuur Annual Congress. But more important is what you do besides these meetings. At these meetings the intention to organize the OG is clearly visible, but the next day it is quiet again. The possible candidate is too far away. Moreover, there is a lot of other news to write about, there is no space in the newspaper left. The relevance of the bid is quite low. Thinking about the bid of 2028, I sometimes wonder if the newspaper still will exists.

Is news around the bid published under the heading ‘sport’ or as a wider societal discussion?

At the moment, we mostly write about the bid for the regional part of our newspaper in Rotterdam, less under the subtitle ‘sport’ or ‘national’. For example, when Rotterdam came with the initiative to organize ‘Floating Games’ which includes a floating Olympic village. We find that ‘fun’ to write about.

Position of the newspaper regarding the bid Does AD have a role in the bid process?

Bring the news, but we are also allowed to give our opinion. For example, I wrote an article named ‘Olympic Plan has a pause button: push it!’ and expressed my opinion about the process of the bid. Now, we ask ourselves if it is wise to keep going in the same direction with the Olympic Plan. During a later stage, we will focus on the financial aspects of the Olympic Plan. What will it mean to the (rest of the) Netherlands if we organize the OG?

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Does AD have a ‘general position’ relative to the bid? And therefore do you try to push the public in a particular direction?

In general the newspaper is positive about the bid. The OG are a big sports event and the newspaper is sport minded. But my personal opinion is that it is nearly impossible to organize the OG for the Netherlands. We will not be assigned to organize it.

Is there any difference in news coverage around the bid between NRC and AD? Yes, AD breathes ‘sport’. I’ve worked twelve years for NRC, and fought all those time to get one extra page of sports in the Monday edition. Probably they also write about the Bid for the OG in the national section?! AD is a more popular newspaper.

The paper version of AD and the AD - website have independent positions. Sometimes that is difficult for us, because the world outside sees us as one. We are held accountable for news on the website, where we have no influence on.

Interaction between journalists and actors How do you receive information on the bid? Does AD get approached by different groups to write about the bid?

Yes, sometimes a lobbyist tries to get more attention in our newspaper and promotes his own subject. We have to find out if it is interested enough to publish about. In general, AD is a national newspaper. But we are sometimes also seen as a Rotterdam orientated newspaper and the municipality of Rotterdam has an interest in the bid of 2028. Topsport Rotterdam has contacted us in the past and had the feeling that we didn’t write a lot about the bid. I have just listened to their plans. Personally, I am interested in the topic but afterwards you have to decide what you are going to do, do you find the topic interesting enough.

Which actors are active in the debate on the bid?

There are not a lot of opponents at the moment. There is not even a nomination for the bid and it is difficult be against a preparation of an event. The SP has spoken out against the Bid. However, officially they are ‘pro’ because it is not popular to be against it during this stadium. The problem with politics is that sports and health are organized in the same ministry. Sports will always loose from ‘health’. Sport should be put in the same portfolio with ‘education’. It is easier to make a connection between education and sports.

Advice to the pro-bid organization to receive more attention Which advice can you give the pro-bid organization to get more attention in AD? The ‘Olympic Virus’ must be transferred to children (ten to twelve years old). For example, athletes with Olympic medals should go to at least one hundred different schools to show the Olympics to the children. To create an Olympic ‘feeling’ among them. If you are able to get the children excited about the Olympics, then the parents will also get enthusiastic. I would write about this initiative. But it has to be newsworthy every time. During the 2028 Olympisch Vuur Annual Congress president Eurlings started his speech with the announcement that director Erik Eijkelberg had great news. They found a sponsor in the municipality of Bergeijk. A cooperation between the municipality, the local elementary schools and the Rabobank led to more sports by all 55

pupils at the (local) schools. But this news is too small; it brings more damage to the Olympic Plan than the fact that they have no news.

A problem is that athletes and important spoke persons don’t have enough time. If you want for example judoka Mark Huizinga to engage in your project, you have to hire him. It is important to have a famous person as key picture. If you see him on television, you think about the Olympic Bid of 2028. Pieter van den Hoogenband is very suitable for this job. He is always positive. I heard that Mrs. Terpstra spoke to him and said he had to start at the bottom (with a little class). He doesn’t agree on that part. He is the only world class hero for the last couple years, which is also known internationally.

I heard they are looking for a new IOC member outside the world of sport. Hein Verbruggen and Prince Willem Alexander wrote a letter to André Bolhuis that he himself should stop lobbying for IOC membership because he is too old for the job. We need a young person in the IOC, who can do the job for a long time and so can create influence.

Do you think the Netherlands started too early with the promotion of the possibility to organize the bid?

Yes, they started far too early. And you need a lot of money to convince the citizens of your Olympic Plan. I think that there are two choices: or you need to go all the way or you have to stay ‘low profile’ for a couple years. For example, if we are silent till 2016, we will still go for the plan to organize the bid. Because it is already deployed, we already started it. They won’t stop anymore.

But Camiel Eurlings is really enthusiastic, a man that can make everyone excited. He has the ability to explain news to the outside world. But he needs more time from his other job. He is not visible enough at the moment. Last year (February 2011 / YS), a group from different Dutch sport organizations (e.g. Been, de Jong, Ross-Van Dorp, Van Bottenburg, Vervoorn en Sturkenboom / YS) were in Rio de Janeiro to see how Brazil prepares itself to organize the Olympic Games of 2016. They contacted me and gave me their scoop. During their trip they figured out that the Olympic Plan should be much clearer and should better be communicated.

They also made a movie, wanted to ‘tackle’ the Olympic Plan and make the message about the bid clearer.

Interview 3: John Volkers Background variables: Name journalist: John Volkers Newspaper: de Volkskrant (VK) Function: reporter sports, with portfolio IOC and Olympics.

Date: March 14, 2012 Strategy How much attention does your newspaper give to the bid?

The 2028 OG is still too far away. Journalists talk about the subject and think about the possibilities and impossibilities. However, we also ask ourselves: ‘Can we already take it serious?’

I think that VK already gave much attention to the possible bid; we published a lot of articles on the subject. But when we are years further, in 2019, we will to follow it even more.

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Is news around the bid published under the heading ‘sport’ or as a wider societal discussion?

At the moment we publish the articles under the heading ‘sport’. When infrastructural plans get involved the articles will move to a more ‘general’ view. Than it is still possible that I write the stories, but they will be published under a different heading.

Position of the newspaper regarding the bid Does VK have a role in the bid process?

Be the bearer of a message. Preferably of good news. But you have to take in mind: ‘Do you want to be used for that role?’ TG often knows the gut feeling of the public very well (for or against an event). AD is overflowing with enthusiasm. Personally, I do not want to take that role.

Does VK have a ‘general position’ relative to the bid? And therefore do you try to push the public in a particular direction?

As a journalist I am allowed to determine my own statements about the bid. Personally I am critical and independent. This ties in well with the character of the VK. About two or three journalists of the VK are writing about the bid, but I write most on the issue. If a journalist expresses several times an opinion which we absolutely do not agree with, he will be questioned about this opinion. But still he is allowed to give his own opinion.

Is there any difference in news coverage around the bid between the different newspapers?

In general, Dutch newspapers are unanimous. They report with a ‘raised eyebrow’. We are not cheering, mostly neutral.

Interaction between journalists and actors How do you receive information on the bid? Does VK get approached by different groups to write about the bid?

We are approached by NOC*NSF, but they don’t have a systematical agenda for journalists on this subject. When we are invited I go to the events and that is necessary to get informed. We should not be arrogant and think that we already know everything; we must have an open mind.

The Annual Congress of Olympisch Vuur 2028 is important to remain in contact with your network. It is a good event to make new connection and have contact with relevant persons.

Which actors are active in the debate on the bid?

Important subjects are the choice of a ‘top 10’ ranking on the OG and the choice of the candidate city Rotterdam or Amsterdam that is probably taken in April. But it is important that we should avoid unrealistic expectations. During the year congress of Olympisch Vuur, Camiel Eurlings held an ‘electoral chat’. He spoke well and showed charisma. But at the moment the government is way too reluctant. If they really want to organize the OG, they should do more. They never approach us. Sport and the Olympic Plan are a very little part of their state budget. Sport is a binding factor for a lot of people. They should understand the essence of that. If you dare to bid for the 2028 OG, you should go for it. Because it makes sports in the Netherlands a lot bigger. It is difficult at

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the moment to find opponents. They are quiet, because it is not the time to say that you are against a bid for the OG. Advice to the pro-bid organization to receive more attention Which advice can you give the pro-bid organization to get more attention in VK? Try to approach me, not too convincing but let the argument do its job. And invite a person with allure that is the biggest supporter of the Olympic Plan. I will ask critical questions, but I will also keep in mind that I will show ‘his’ story. For example Hein Verbruggen, a man with a history in the OG and you should respect that. This person must clearly indicate the usefulness and importance of the 2028 OG in the Netherlands. We also need ‘young energy’. Take for example Pieter van den Hoogenband. He should take the lead and debit ‘holy faith’. We need a great pioneer of the Olympic Plan. Then one day you will pull the negatives too.

I was not in favor of Eurlings, because he doesn’t have a sport history. After he accepted his position as chairman of Olympisch Vuur 2028, I didn’t see him for half a year. That kills your plan. I look critically at him. Terpstra has been a brilliant move. She was everywhere and had a sunny personality. She came to watch every game, Eurlings should do that also. I had to convince VK for a person like Erica Terpstra, they found here too excited and exaggerated. But I said “go talk to her for an hour and when you will come back you will be convinced of her gaiety”.

Do you think the Netherlands started too early with the promotion of the possibility to organize the bid?

No, we didn’t start too early. But I think we can better stay ‘low profile’ for a while. In 1980 we started with the candidature of the 1992 OG. The Spaniard Juan Antonio Samaranch tried to arrange opposition to the bid of Barcelona. He invited the Netherlands to be a candidate of the 1992 OG, and the Netherlands responded positive. Journalists who write about the 2028 OG are generally already longer in business. In 1980 we were all enthusiastic about the possible candidacy of the Netherlands. Now we think: you must write about the subject, because that is your job as a newspaper. You analyze and give comments, but calm and careful. After 1986 we said to each other ‘we will never do this again!’ Look at the 2012 OG. The competition was between London and Paris. Paris had a better proposal, but London got the OG. The Netherlands is a country of a thousand opinions; we all have something to say about everything. You remember the song of Fluitsma and van Tijn ‘Fifteen million people’? You should listen to it.

How can we recover the backlog that we have in the field of lobbying?

I write neutral about the Olympic Plan, consider it critical. It would be great if the OG would be organized in the Netherlands. As a spectator I would certainly go to see the OG, at that time I am not a journalist anymore. I think it could lead to a renovation of the sport landscape. The country could benefit from it, we could show the rest of the world what a good offer we can give them.

In the selection of the candidature host city, we should choose for Rotterdam. Amsterdam is not a city of sports, but Rotterdam organized many tournaments in recent years. By choosing Rotterdam, we can show everyone what Rotterdam looks like, with the beautiful harbor. We can generate publicity for our country. And during the election in the IOC, we go out as second. Well, that’s the way it is.

At the election of IOC for the Winter 2018 OG in Durban, I was the only Dutch journalist present. I went there in case there might be surprisingly news. It could have been that the prince

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announced that this was his last official vote for the IOC, than I would have had a scoop about him becoming king of the Netherlands. Eventually I got a face-to-face interview with the prince alone.

The Netherlands is not really a sport nation. In 1980 the Netherlands organized the Paralympics’ Games in Arnhem and in 1995 the World Games for all non-Olympic sports. Since the ‘80s the Netherlands changed from a sport culture to a top-level sport culture. Before those years, training much was found ‘dirty’. I started in ’77 with great enthusiasm. However I ask critical visions from athletes. You became your own standard after your previous results. You won the Olympic Gold of women’s water polo team in 2008 and in 2009 you were 5th during the World Championships. After Olympic Gold I don’t think that is a good result. You have to try to put the bar higher.

Interview 4: Bert Schaap Background variables: Name journalist: Bert Schaap Newspaper: de Telegraaf (TG) Function: reporter sports, with portfolio IOC. Date: March 15, 2012 Strategy How much attention does your newspaper give to the bid?

Currently, there is not a lot going on around the bid, it is not very visible yet. Important decisions should have been made earlier. But our political system makes that (more) difficult.

We didn’t conceive a strategy yet on how we want to portray the potential bid in our newspaper. There is not a time planning yet. The main problem in the news is that the Dutch population thinks that organizing the OG costs a lot of money, but that’s not true.

Is news around the bid published under the heading ‘sport’ or as a wider societal discussion?

At the moment we publish everything under the heading ‘sport’.

Position of the newspaper regarding the bid Does TG have a role in the bid process?

Bringing news is the most important part of the job. But if it would be worthwhile, I would publish more about it. Worthwhile would mean that it has to have a good impact at the country.

That should be made more visible.

Does TG have a ‘general position’ relative to the bid? And therefore do you try to push the public in a particular direction?

The ambitions of the Olympic Plan are big and you cannot be against those ambitions. But as a journalist it is necessary to point out question marks on every subject. Personal, I am very skeptical about the Bid, because our country is too democratic to get the bid in the Netherlands.

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Is there any difference in news coverage around the bid between TG and other Dutch newspapers?

I think that TG supports the ambition of the Olympic Plan more than the other newspapers. The main difference is probably between TG and VK, they are more critical than we are.

Interaction between journalists and actors How do you receive information on the bid? Does TG get approached by different groups to write about the bid?

We don’t get approached by lobbyists. If someone would approach me with a good story, I would listen and (maybe) write about it. Politicians also don’t approach us. But I don’t really care what they do, it doesn’t matter what they do.

Which actors are active in the debate on the bid?

The pro-bid organization Olympisch Vuur, NOC*NSF and (chairman of Olympic Plan) Camiel Eurling are mostly visible in the news. Eurlings is also coming slowly out of his shell.

Advice to the pro-bid organization to receive more attention Which advice can you give the pro-bid organization to get more attention in TG? It should be much more visible. They have to come up with something special and big. For example, if Mark Rutte decides to lead the Olympic Plan. That would be a good signal from Den Haag, from the government. After that, the fact that the government supports this initiative should be specified in a law. This will mean that the next prime minister is also required to stand behind the Olympic Plan. The Plan must be put above all political programs. Of course changes in the Cabinet can also be positive. See for example, minister Schipper announced that10 million Euros more for sports is made available. That’s a good thing. But because she also has ‘care’ in her portfolio it is understandable that a lot of attention goes to that subject.

Possible ideas could be: a Daily Olympic news Journal, the queen should talk about the Olympic Plan in her ‘troonrede’ speech, Dutch politics should give a clear signal that they are behind the bid and people from different specific areas, besides sport, should gather behind the Olympic Plan. For example, Marco Borsato would be a good option. They could show that they are also pro the 2028 OG in the Netherlands. But the prime minister should make the first step.

Do you think the Netherlands started too early with the promotion of the possibility to organize the bid?

No, not at all. But we need a clear statement from Den Haag, our government doesn’t do enough.

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Interview 5: Bart de Liefde.

Background variables: Name politician: Bart de Liefde.

Political party: VVD Function: Member of the 2e Chamber, with portfolio Sport, Culture, the law on gambling and the football law.

Date: March 21, 2012 Position of the actors towards the bid Statement VVD on the Olympic Games of 2028: Top-level sport and recreational sport, also for people with disabilities, should be encouraged.

Also attract international sport events – such as the Olympic Games in 2028 – is important according to the VVD. That means a boost for sports, our economy and the spatial dynamics (VVD, n.d.).

The VVD has a positive view on the bid of the 2028 OG. Is the position of the VVD towards the bid changed in recent years? If yes, what were the reasons for this change?

It always fluctuates. The national budget that is hold for sport is 136 million. In total we have to cut down the government budget with 18 billion euro. If you compare these amounts, you can conclude that the government spends little on sports. On the other hand, the municipalities provide 2 billion to sports annually.

Personally I think that sport is very important for society. I always try explicitly to make a connection between public health, children and sport. For children it is important they exercise more often at an early age, because that would mean that when they get older they will also exercise more often and will have a better health. But the problem is that costs that are saved with this progress can’t be written in the books easily. I can’t scratch it out of the amount of money that is needed for ‘healthcare’. This is de disadvantage of sports, the (measurement of the) benefits are sometimes difficult to prove.

Does your party use a particular strategy or method regarding the Bid to deal with the Dutch Newspaper / media?

The VVD only responds to questions from the media. Regarding the Olympic Plan of 2028 we display the opportunities and threats for a subject that will be decided in 2016. A first Social CostBenefit Analysis was made. The 2028 OG is also mentioned in the ‘government agreement’.

The decision on the possible candidature of the Netherlands will be taken in 2016, so there is not much reason to look active for the media. You won’t miss anything, and you won’t win anything with it if you do. And besides that, between 2012 en 2015 is another election. Parties may change their mind on the issue of the 2028 OG in the meantime. For example, it could be possible that CDA or D66 changes form a positive to the opinion that it would be unwise to organize the OG at home. It is all possible.

Newspapers have more room for making nuances on a subject than other kind of media. Quality newspapers often have the ability to occasionally write a more in-depth piece. NRC let the opponents and proponents of the bid tell their story and gives background information every now and then. I believe that opinion pieces and factual representations should be shown more clearly in

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the newspapers. When is an article an opinion piece and when a factual view? At the moment several journalists choose more often to write in a mix form of both.

Debate on relevant issues concerning the bid The Dutch newspapers write about the discussion which city should host the 2028 OG by the Netherlands. Also the VVD is visible on the debate of this subject: VVD-party leader Eric van der Burg says that Rotterdam should step back: “Let Amsterdam bring the OG. Elements of the OG can be possible in Rotterdam or elsewhere” (Schulte, 2009).

In the Second Chamber of Parliament there was strong criticism on the lack of choices for a candidate city. It bothers Hanke Bruin lot (CDA) that particular Amsterdam and Rotterdam compete with events. Bart de Liefde (VVD): “The competition only costs money and energie” (NRC Handelsblad, 2011a).

VVD council member Brian Benjamin only sees the benefits of bringing the 2028 OG to Amsterdam, This appears form his opinion piece on ‘The last word’ on Friday. According to him, anyone who thinks otherwise has a parochial view. However, the Netherlands as a whole is compared to the rest of the world a major town” (Het Parool, 2011).

Two years later the debate still continues on the candidate city that the Netherlands should move forward. I can image that the VVD is not amused about that. Why didn’t the government opt to make a decision earlier to talk more about the content of the 2028 OG? The Second Chamber of Parliament doesn’t choose the candidate city. The organization Olympisch Vuur must nominate the possible candidate city. The media frame that is visible on this subject at the moment is to simplify the issue for the readers. Gerard Dielessen of NOC*NSF has written an article on his weblog about this, I give you the advice to read it (see: Dielessen, 2012).

A political party of the opposition, SP, seems to debate mainly on the financial implications of the preparations and the organization of the OG. In what way does the VVD try to give a different ‘sound’ on this subject (in the newspapers)?

RTL (News) calculated an amount. They said that the government already spent 188 million euro on the Dutch Olympic ambitions, but when you dismantle this amount you see that a big part of it not always belongs to the heading ‘Olympic Plan’. See for example several sport accommodations throughout the country that were brought to Olympic level, RTL connects this to the Olympic Plan. But these improvements could have been performed anyway. This is for example also necessary to organise other tournaments. So what is the reason to see it as expenditure of the Olympic Plan?

The ‘Teldersstichting’, a research department of the VVD, published in March 2012 ‘Manifestations of the Freedom of Spirit, a liberal view on culture and sport’. One of the recommendations is to put emphasis on the facilitation of recreational sport and ‘stop’ or be cautious with government support of top-level sport. The grants of top-level sport will be greatly reduced.

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What do you think about the findings of this report and the statement of the VVD towards the 2028 OG? The ‘Teldersstichting’ is independent of the political party VVD. We don’t have influence on what they say and on their research. I believe that we should not stop the support for top-level sport and I don’t agree with the outcome of the report. But as a political party we are not going to defend the results of their report in the media. It’s not our report.

Interaction between journalists and actors Which actors that are visible in the news are pro or against the bid?

If we look at the electoral programs of the political parties in the Netherlands, only SP is officially critical about the Olympic Plan. But if I look at the political debate I think that currently only VVD and CDA are proponents of the idea behind the Olympic Plan.

Isn’t it possible to capture the Olympic Plan before a new government is appointed?

It is impossible to finalize it at this stage. It is possible to reserve budget for the event. But a new government can reverse that. Ultimately everything can be reversed. See for example the prolonged estimates at raising the retirement age to 67 years, these decisions are already booked as long term budget cuts. If a left-wing government would lead this country and has a different opinion on this subject, it would be very difficult to reverse what is already booked. But not impossible.

The media ‘talk’ a lot about the fact that the Olympic Plan needs a figurehead. Whom do you see as the ideal figurehead?

The Olympic Flame should serve as figurehead. But at the moment it doesn’t work very well, Camiel Eurlings seems a little bit too busy with his work for KLM. It is impossible to have an active politician as figurehead, because than you will get proponents and opponents within the Second Camber of Parliament. If I, for example, would take the job as figurehead of Olympic Plan people will say “there you have that guy from VVD again”. You need someone that can act as a connector and stands above the parties.

Do you approach media/sport journalists to discuss the Olympic Plan?

Rarely. Sometimes I agree to sit with journalists to talk about a subject. These are usually background conversations. In this way I indirectly provide input on a subject.

Do you think the Netherlands started too early with the promotion of the possibility to organize the bid (in connection with media and convincing citizens)?

The year 2016 seems randomly chosen. The thought was then that between 2016 and 2021 there would be enough time to assemble a good bid. I think that the intention of in 2008 to choose eight years (to 2016) as period to get the population excited about the Olympic Plan was a reasonable strategy at the time. The misfortune is the fact that two economic crises have hit the world since then. No one could have known that in advance.

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Interview 7: Renske Leijten (SP) This interview is conducted by telephone.

Background variables: Name politician: Renske Leijten Political party: SP Function: Member of the 2e Chamber, with portfolios ‘Youth care’ and ‘Health, welfare and sport’.

Date: May 25, 2012 Position of the actor towards the bid Position SP – organization Olympic Games 2028: “It is a nice challenge to try to organize the 2028 OG. The Olympic Plan that was created by NOC*NSF and many partners gives an impetus. Before the final decision to choose for the organization of the OG, it is still necessary to fast determine the possible host city and a study is conducted to display the necessary facilities. Only then we will know for what efforts our country is up to and whether we can handle it. If we can handle the organization, there have to be a specific rule that the OG are by and for the people. Top-level sport development must therefore together with recreational sport. It is necessary to prevent that the social cost of the OG will only benefit to business, advertisers and top-level sport” (SP, n.d.).

SP had a critical view on the bid of the 2028 OG. Is the position of the SP towards the bid changed in recent years? If yes, what were the reasons for this change?

We are proponents of the goals that are associated with the Olympic Plan. However, we are critical on the bid itself. In our new election program, we will specify that we want to discontinue all preparations of the Olympic Plan / 2028 OG. One of the reasons is the unclear costs. We are not informed correctly by the Minister of Health, Welfare and Sport Edith Schippers. Our opinion at the moment is ‘just stop for now’.

Does your party use a particular strategy or method regarding the bid to deal with the Dutch Newspaper / media?

The press is allowed to call me for a reaction. Then I think about if I (we) want to be associated with this subject in the newspapers. Of course I don’t respond to every application. But we do need the press, so usually I respond to their questions.

We don’t hold press conferences on the subject of the OG, because we don’t bear the initiative of this issue. But the topic is very current at the moment. We need to say something about it. We talk about it in our election program and we put messages on this topic on our website. We want to show the public how we think about the Olympic Plan and OG. Do you think your opinion concerning the bid is visible enough for the voters and followers of SP? Yes, we get a lot of support among the public. Even more among followers of SP. We just make another choice.

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Debate on relevant issues concerning the bid Sp seems to debate mainly on the financial implications of the preparations and the organization of the OG. Is SP ‘happy’ that this subject is so much discussed in the newspapers?

Newspapers call me about the subject. Also RTL (news) came to me. A possible reason is that I have taken much initiative for investigations during the bid for the World Cup of Soccer. But the main issue here is that sport at schools is not arranged yet. This is seen as too expensive. I think that is tragic. This is a prestige plan, we must offer the facilities. Special schools that offer more facilities in sport (‘LOOT’ schools) must be facilitated.

I also have some comments about the top-level sport policy of NOC*NSF. At the moment they mainly focus on the major sports. The support for big talents in minor sports is limited. I think that this support should be ‘broader’. We are not against ‘top-level sport’, but it should all be in the right proportions.

Two years later the debate still continues on the candidate city that the Netherlands should move forward. What is the opinion of SP about this subject?

We submitted - together with CDA - amendment that the candidate city should be decided in the summer of 2010. At that moment, the sport federations didn’t care about politics. But at the end, when it’s necessary we (also) have to create the budget. This is obviously not the way to show trust in each other.

Interaction between journalists and actors What do you think in general on the way the Dutch newspapers have published over the years on the Bid? Quite negative, except De Telegraaf, but I think they have a contract with NOC*NSF to publish positive articles on the Olympic Plan. I don’t think it is strange that the tone is mainly negative. It is shocking that we did not receive all information on the topic from our minister of Sports. Hiding information is a very bad signal. We have had very bad experiences with that in the past.

Previous research indicates that a lot of money will be spent from public funds (paid by taxpayers). And afterwards, the benefits will go to business companies. Who will get the benefits and who the disadvantages? We can better invest in a better society. During the bid for the World Cup of Soccer, I came up with a fund where government and business companies should deposit money in. An ‘allocation key’ has to ensure how the money should be spent. Everything will be organized from that fund. The profits will also be refunded and will be equally divided.

Do you think a new compilation of a Cabinet will affect the progress of the Olympic Plan? Will there be changes?

In 2016 the decision on the 2028 OG will be made. This falls into the new reign period. SP has different goals with our society: make a good start after the crises, and support citizens to exercise more often. Let’s not organize the OG.

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Do you think the Netherlands started too early with the promotion of the possibility to organize the bid (in connection with media and convincing citizens)?

Yes. At the moment there is a high-speed train. It is a train without exit doors, there is no emergency button and there are no stops between stations.

Interview 7: Jan Willem Maas Background variables: Name actor: Jan Willem Maas.

Job: Senior Partner and managing director of Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Board member of NOC*NSF with portfolio Olympic Plan 2028, member of Utrecht Development Board (UDB) and board member of federation of SV Kampong.

Date: April 3, 2012.

Also present at the interview: Geert Slot, Press Officer / spokesmen of NOC*NSF. Comments from him are marked with the initials ‘GS’.

To start.

Everyone speaks about ‘the bid’, but there is no (official) bid yet. We only agreed on a roadmap.

There is enthusiasm around the Olympic Plan. It is true that in the past the bid for the OG of 1992 went completely wrong. At that moment the bid was only supported by the world of sports. There was little support among the population. But we learned from that lesson: you are allowed to dream, but the OG should be ‘owned’ by everyone, the whole country of the Netherlands. The Netherlands should benefit from it.

I am a board member of NOC*NSF since one and a half year, and therefore added later.

But I support all the plans that are made. We designed a little book about the Olympic Plan to see what value the OG can have to the Netherlands. We first want to show the benefits to our country.

Position of the actor towards the bid How does NOC*NSF try to convince the Dutch citizens of the advantages of the 2028 OG by the Netherlands?

To show the benefits, we established Olympisch Vuur. They brought many ideas to show these benefits. NOC*NSF is particularly significant for targets to create high sport participation and a top 10 goal during the Olympic Games. At many place in the Netherlands, in large and small sizes we want to inspire citizens by the Olympisch Plan.

(GS – We ask a lot of attention for Olympic Plan. You get more attention when you present many ideas. We want citizens of the Netherlands to feel the benefits of a possible OG by allowing them to see the benefits by themselves.)

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In which way does NOC*NSF make use of newspapers to express their position in the debate?

Does NOC*NSF uses a particular strategy or method regarding the bid to deal with the Dutch Newspaper / media?

Our media policy means that we want to show activities with our various alliance partners in the press. We want to show the effects on society. Athletes can also be used for these objectives. .

(GS – A problems is that media want to talk only about top-level sport. They don’t like to talk about recreational sports. This applies especially to newspaper which can influence the political opinion. From the national newspapers, only VK is interested in the bigger (and wider) story. Smaller magazines do want to talk about recreational sport.)

The method is to touch people (emotionally) in their lives. But you don’t have to touch those people ten years in a row. You must pick your moments, for example when André Bolhuis (chairman of the board of NOC*NSF / YS) visits an event. At a local level these initiatives are already more clear, at a national level this is not the case yet.

(GS – In the international world of sports nobody is busy with our potential ‘bid’. If they heard us about ‘a bid’, they would laugh at us. Subjects that are present in the news are mostly not legitimate. See for example, the measurements on support among the populations. It is impossible to keep the ‘tension’ constantly high. And about the vote of no confidence to Minister of Health, Welfare and Sport, Edith Schippers, NOC*NSF cannot say anything about, because we don’t take part in that debate.)

The question ‘Are we going to launch a bid?’ is an issue in 2016. It is strange to say that they want to cut expenditure of the Olympic Plan. It is impossible to delete for example a stadium, because it is not there yet. So from which budget are you cutting?

Debate on relevant issues concerning the bid From the figures that RTL News requested access, shows that 81 million are direct costs of the 2028 OG – such as feasibility studies, mission ad costs for the lobby group OF. The remaining 107 million is mainly for sport accommodations, which are upgraded to an Olympic level. NOC*NSF thinks the costs are obvious. General director Gerard Dielessen finds it a pittance, because the money is invested to bring the Netherlands to an Olympic level and sport is deployed as a tool to combat obesity” (Smit, 2012).

The debate surrounding the possible bid is currently most about the financial implication of preparing and organizing the 2028 OG. How does NOC*NSF deal with this topic in the media? In which way does NOC*NSF try to rebuttal this call, of for example the political opposition par 2016ty SP? It is impossible to hold an economic discussion during an economic crisis. That’s why you should not do so. It is a non-discussion, there is no money spent at the moment. The ‘real’ money will (maybe) be spent in 2021.

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The Dutch newspapers write on the discussion which city should host the 2028 OG by the Netherlands.About two years later the debate continues on the candidate city that the Netherlands should move forward. Why didn’t NOC*NSF choose to make this decision earlier? What are the benefits from delaying this decision?

How do we already know which city is the best option? The year 2019 is still far away. If you already make the decision now, don’t we put the Netherlands at the sideline? We want to bring the whole country to an Olympic level. Ultimately we have to give one city the ‘Olympic hosting name’ and we need to get the other cities involved. We want to prevent that the rest of the country ‘quits’. We don’t like it, but the subject is on the agenda. There are different opinions.

(GS – In 2016, 2017 or 2018 we want to reveal the possible host city.)

Why are you not clear about this subject to the audience? Clarity as: in 2016 the host city will be announced?

(GS – This was our plan. But the Second Chamber disagreed on this issue. Former Secretary of State at the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, Jet Bussemaker, said that we would already choose a host city in 2010, but that was besides the original planning.

This is probably a cause of the fact that we have this discussion now.)

We don’t have a clear view of the costs. We can only answer that question from 2016 on. And of course politics are a major party. At the moment, we lost the ‘lead’ in the discussion. We try to take control back, but we did not always receive a positive response. We want to give the process that runs now a ‘soft landing’. We don’t want the different cities to quarrel.

Interaction between journalists and actors Why don’t call all journalists together, sit around the table and explain the different issues?

(GS – We do call journalists together and explain them the situation. We have done this with the Olympic Plan. But in the debate that is currently underway in the media we are no party. Sometimes we are reactive and try to help by giving all the information that is necessary. But when the media is discussing the fact that a Minister didn’t tell everything on the potential costs of the 2028 OG, there’s nothing we can do.)

Is this also a matter of keeping a ‘good’ name?

As NOC*NSF we are not a ‘name’ in the discussion. We can only help in the interpretation of the issues.

(GS – We don’t discuss with the parliament through the press. This already happened during the Bid for the World Cup. We give openness about all data. We don’t have any influence on letters of or to the Cabinet. We don’t want to get involved in these issues.)

Which actors are visible in the news surrounding the possible bid?

There are three different groups visible in the press.

First there are the opponents of the bid. They don’t want the OG in the Netherlands and don’t see the (positive) effects of the OG. These are individuals and the right wing religious 68

parties CU / SGP (under specific conditions even they stand behind the Olympic Plan). These parties think it is a waste of money to organize the OG in the Netherlands.

The second group likes to see the OG organized by the Netherlands. They also don’t like to loiter. They think that a host city should immediately be designated. They also think we’ve got to tackle the organization.

The third group thinks the roadmap that is made should be performed. The steps / phases are fine and we must follow these steps.

(GS – The problem for SP is that their voters probably would like to see the OG held in the Netherlands. But SP wants this with zero euro expenditure of the taxpayers.)

(A part of) the ‘Brazil’-group belongs to the second group. They want to go to fast. Actually, I also went to Brazil. We sat several times around the table with them and gave our explanation why we choose our time table. And we didn’t agree on this issue. They are impatience and have a ‘go for it’ mentality. I think that the consequences of this approach would be a loss of support among the population. Actually, I think that the (second) group should have argued to organize the OG of 2020 or 2024.

You are board member of NOC*NSF with the portfolio of Olympic Plan 2028, but are not very visible in the debate in the newspapers. Is it a conscious choice to make one person visible in the news on this topic?

I have an internal function, not a position to the press. And we already have good spokesmen, namely André Bolhuis (chairman NOC*NSF / YS) and Camiel Eurlings (chairman of OV / YS). It would make it unclear if we would add a third person. We have consciously chosen for these two persons. It is important to generate awareness; it is a great investment to generate such a degree of fame that people make a connection between you and a topic like the OG. What is the reason that Camiel Eurling is still not very visible in the news?

That is his choice. If you want to know, you should ask him. Possible reasons could be: agenda, time and the idea ‘don’t do too much until 2016’. You shouldn’t want to be ‘visible’ in the newspaper every week or month. That would not be good, because that would mean that far too often little ‘news’ on the Olympic Plan would appear in the newspaper.

(GS – Patience is very important. You want to debate later on. ‘Pick you moments!’

During the OG of London we are going to show the Dutch citizens what positive effects of organizing the OG could be for the Netherlands. Underline all the positive effects. Now we are each time in defense.)

Do you think the Netherlands started too early with the promotion of the possibility to organize the bid (in connection with media and convincing citizens)?

No. If you want to generate effect you need time to do this. A process of several years is needed.

But actually, the brand of the ‘Olympic rings’ is too strong for the Olympic Plan. Currently we are not working on the organization of the OG, but first we want to realize the other objectives. Our main goal is being an inspiration. But the OG is a very strong brand.

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(GS – Each phase must be seen as a ‘no regret’ phase. After each phase the initiative can be ended. The feeling that is present at the moment is that each phase is meant to proceed to the next phase Do the media frustrate you a little?

Frustration is a big word. But I am a little bit frustrated sometimes when the issue is framed wrong. My feeling says that they make everything very simple.

(GS – The minority Cabinet isn’t sure on if the other parties are fully behind the Olympic Plan. They are searching and that is picked up by RTL.) For me, the media is a new phenomenon for me. My rational tendency is to tackle the list (showed

by RTL news) and just say what is wrong about it. I want to explain that this story is not the ‘real’ truth. But the way you do that and the way it is interpreted is important. We adhere to our own plan. Because you won’t win this game on arguing ‘true’ or ‘not true’ back and forward.

(GS – For example, the European Youth Olympic Festival (EYOF) is on the list. This has nothing to do with the 2028 Olympic Plan. But if RTL calls around a bit and speaks to someone who says ‘it has a benefit for the Olympic Plan, because with this event we can show that we can organize big events’, they put it on the list.)

During the Annual Congress of Olympisch Vuur 2028 news about Bergeijk was expressed. This was seen by journalists as small news. Why was chosen to bring this news as ‘special news’ during the congress?

It was used as a theme of which we are dealing with at the moment. It had a symbolic function, the combination of a private party and a local government. It is seen as small news, but it was just an example. It only becomes large when the Rabobank would do this with every bank in the country?

(GS – Plenty of small initiatives will come. But the media are used to compelling events.

We must (emotionally) touch the people themselves, the resonance in the media is not great. This is also a new area for us. We send messages through our own media channels: sites, journalists who ask us about the OP and blogs. We also make movies by ourselves now and offer them to local broadcasters. They are very excited about it. It does not always go through the national newspapers anymore.)

Interview 8: Cees Vervoorn Background variables: Name actor: Cees Vervoorn Job: Lecturer Top-level sport and Education (ALO Amsterdam), managing director of Rabobank cycling team, AFC Ajax, skating association and several scientific institutions.

Date: March 16, 2012 Position of the actor towards the bid “Because of his research group, Vervoorn is the face of top-level sport in the capital of the Netherlands. He is driven by the intention to organize the 2028 OG” (Annema, 2012).

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What is the reason that you are very visible in the news about the topic on the 2028 OG? Do you consciously choose to be more visible, or do newspapers ask you to give interviews (because of the many different features you cover in the Dutch world of sports)?

I have opinions on many different subjects and I talk easily. I think journalists think that they can always find a ‘quote’ if they talk to me. And besides that, I have been too many OGs in various roles: as an athlete, as a coach and as a Chef de Mission of the Dutch Paralympics’ Team. They search for me. And I am not in the way of anyone. But I realize that when I say something or give an interview to a newspaper, there will always be opinions pro or against mine. I think you have the right to say whatever you want, but mostly I respond only on topics which I know much about.

“In the beginning I was pretty skeptical, but I’m slowly going to believe in the feasibility. 2028… exactly one century after Amsterdam 1928, which already makes a good change from historical perspective” (De Telegraaf, 2009).

How did your position towards the organization of the OG by the Netherlands change? What are the main reasons for this change?

I do something because I think it is fun. My pitfall is that we must talk about the OG, but you have to experience the OG. It is something special that you can heraldry describe. I think that it is allowed to spend some money to show citizens the spirit of the OGs. At the beginning of the lectures we give at the University of Amsterdam most of the students were pro organizing the OG by the Netherlands. Before starting the lecture series, I thought this class would be very positive. But now I notice that the students realize that there are more defects than they thought.

Debate on relevant issues concerning the bid Dutch newspapers write on the discussion which city should host the 2028 OG by the Netherlands (Schulte, 2009; NRC, 2011a; Het Parool, 2011; NRC Handelsblad, 2011b; Annema, 2012).

In VK (2012, February 10) you indicate that the choice on the possible host city should be made fast. Do you think the public support for the organization of the OG by the Netherlands will increase after this decision? What is the reason that this choice wasn’t been done before?

I think that a lot of positive energy will be released if the decision on the host city would be made.

The reason this decision isn’t made yet is that we are afraid that the eliminator doesn’t want to participate anymore. But I don’t agree. If Amsterdam becomes the Olympic host city, Rotterdam eventually still gets more finals. Amsterdam will organize the so-called the ‘big five’ Olympic sports of which accommodations are required that lie close to each other and with short travel times between them. Rotterdam is better suited for many other sporting events.

We lack leadership, we must dare more. We put the choice of the host city already aside for the fifth consecutive time. That is costly. If they don’t make this choice soon, it is possible that the municipality of Amsterdam have to make financial cuts. They were able to keep the area of the Olympic Plan aside, but if it takes too long that is not possible anymore. Every choice you make has to be in line with the question: how do we increase the change that the OG will be pointed to the Netherlands? And therefore you must choose Amsterdam.

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The mayors of Amsterdam, Eberhard van der Laan, and Rotterdam, Ahmed Aboutaleb, are both from the same political party PvdA. Do you think it is odd that two cities are outbidding against each other while they are of the same political party? Isn’t this confusing for the citizens?

I would put them together in one room and let them out after when they come with a solution.

They should discuss the exchange. The host city name should be Amsterdam, but the actual Olympic city is Rotterdam. They are originating from the same political party, so that’s what I indeed cannot understand. But you have to realize that as an athlete everything is easier and simpler. I understand that in the world of politics it is not always the same. But we should keep it simpler and make choices.

“Cees Vervoorn shows arrogance to indicate that Rotterdam should be forced to withdraw as a candidate for the 2028 OG. His reason: Amsterdam speaks better to the (rest of) the world. Indeed, drug, the red light district and gay hate and a little bit of Ajax. Rotterdam is as well known only has more facilities. But well, I wish everyone the best, even Dordrecht. I am not in favor of the OG organized in our country; it costs billions and delivers almost nothing. After the OG we are left with expensive accommodations that are no longer used.” (De Koning, 2011).

Many citizens don’t see the benefits from the OG at home. What advice would you give to the Dutch politics / political parties to ‘sell’ the OG in our country (in the press)?

The Prime Minister should support the Olympic Plan. I think it is strange that only the department ‘ministry of health, welfare and sport’ uses the term OG in their description. Every departments should have mentioned the OG and talk about it, because each subject has something to do with the OG. A good move would be letting princess Maxima occasionally say at events ‘We want to organize the OG’. I know the Royal Family finds this difficult, but she would be perfect for the job. Both men and women like her. Even if it is only for increasing public support for the OG. “Two dreams show his true ambitions: six hours gymnastics a week for each child (‘good and healthy exercise is a fundamental right’) and the arrival of the OG to Amsterdam in 2028. (…). He is convinced ‘that sport offers many opportunities, and society let a lot of possibilities behind’.

Last week, Minister of Health Schippers alarmed on the rapidly increased obesity among young people. (…). ‘You can’t explain a person what’s something like that does to you, it is something they have to experience. I am a big fan of the Olympic Plan, which gradually have to lead to socially responsible practice of sports and inspiration for the whole society” (Annema, 2012).

“We said to the politicians: if we are serious with the Olympic plans, we have to look at our youth today and therefore look at good physical education. The Olympic champions of 2028 are now almost at elementary school, so we should do something with this, if we want to win medals” (De Telegraaf, 2009).

In terms of sports it is important to start early with stimulating citizens to exercise more often to get good results. But is such a long period for the citizens who read the newspapers (or listen / watch other media) to long to keep believing in the Olympic Plan? Do you use the Olympic Plan to fight for the rights of the children to exercise more often?

I don’t understand that children are not allowed to exercise longer at school, it is their right. You can wake me up for this. We can use the Olympic Plan to connect two subjects: children need to exercise more and the realization of the organization of the 2028 OG. In both ways you have to exploit it, from the angle of the children and from the 2028 OG. The different area must add: obesity, welfare, economy, and so on.

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Interaction between journalist and actors What do you think in general on the way Dutch newspapers have published over the years on the bid? Was could have been different?

The main role of newspapers is to inform citizens well on the (content of the) Olympic Plan. You spoke to four journalists from different Dutch national newspapers. I think Klippus of AD has the opinion the Olympic flame has gone out. He and Schaap of TG have the job to ‘sell’ the news.

Stouwdam of NRC primarily relies on facts. And Volker of VK is not very prominent of the Olympic Plan. He sees the congress of Olympisch Vuur as a place to remain in contact with other journalists or to his opinion relevant persons. You can say anything you want about Bert Schaap (of TG), but he is present at much sport events. Journalists have more ideas and thoughts than they can show us in an article. Charles van Commenée told me that in Great Britain they have a kind of arrangement with journalists. They give journalists the information they need, vice versa the journalists given them insights in their thoughts and ideas.

Do the Dutch media have the opportunity to influence the IOC? For sure! When the IOC makes a decision on who they should vote during the election of the candidate city for the OGs, they look at two points: (1) would I like to stay in this city with my wife for four weeks? And (2) will the press be moaning for the next seven years? Therefore, you have to talk with the press. If you want to organize the OG, you need to find a way ‘to play the game’. You must show them their responsibility in the process. We will probably not totally succeed, but we should involve the press in the plans we have. We should invite the key figures and make appointments with them. If they don’t want to cooperate, you should take this into account.

Which advice can you give the pro-bid organization to get more attention in the newspapers?

What would you do if you could lead the Olympic Flame?

People should be included; you need to take them with you. If I would be in service of the Olympic Plan, I would shake hands of with everybody on the first day and the second day I would go to the newspapers (and other media). I would give them a lot of information on what we are doing. I would show them a picture that does justice to reality. Journalists are allowed to have their own opinion on the Olympic Plan, but we will always have a dialogue. They can ask the questions and I will explain and answer them. At the moment it is too quiet in the press.

One of our problems is that we can’t give a good answer to the question ‘Why do we really want to organize the Olympic Games’? We have to able to explain what the OG can mean in and for the Netherlands. Rio de Janeiro wants to organize the OG because it can be of great significance for the transformation of Brazil into one of the world’s new economic powers.

London answers this question with the improvement of East-London. But we don’t know. I don’t know the right answer either. I remember that this same question was also asked to (NOC*NSFchairman) Andre Bolhuis, and he struggled with his answer, reacted mainly out of fear. Together with around fifty representatives from sports and business we went to Rio de Janeiro for a study trip called ‘The Netherlands to an Olympic level’ (February 4-13, 2011). When we came back we had some recommendations for the bid of the Netherlands. Andre Bolhuis better could have said: ‘great! Let’s sit around the table and have a conversation about the ideas of you’. But instead, he pushed us away. That could have been different. The pro-bid organization should tell its story.

Why do you do what you do? And why in the way you do it? Explain your motives. That’s the way you can take people with you. The idea of the Olympic Plan is brilliant: determent the legacy 73

of the OG in advance. We should also calculate how much the organization of the OG will cost.

Not as a bland overall calculation, it has to be more precise. I think the overweight of children in the Netherlands costs a lot more!

When the 2028 Olympic Plan was started six years ago, we were said: there is no country in the world who already thinks about the OS in 2028 in your country. This is an advantage and a disadvantage: you have much time, and you have much time. We need to make a media strategy and choose moment when we want to bring the message to the public. The social message of the Olympic Plan should be told at another event.

I never met the new chairman of the OF, Camiel Eurlings, so I don’t have an opinion about him. But with his position at KLM, I think he can help the Olympic Plan with his connections in the world of business. We shouldn’t underestimate this part. Only, too bad he doesn’t have a history in sports.

The twenty-eight athletes that are with the Olympic Plan should make a manifest with each other.

They have to pay them for three days a week, so they can go everywhere to tell the story about the 2028 OG. This is possible in a time of a financial crisis, but you have to explain people why you invest in the Olympic Plan. At least till 2016 you have to go all the way. See for example the fact that students have to pay € 3000, -- more if they study to long. This would mean that it is possible that an athlete wins a medal in at the OG of 2012 and will be honored. And one month later they get a letter of the same minister that they have to pay a fine. We are one of the richest countries in the world, why can’t we organize the OG? Would you like to give the Olympic Plan of 2028 a new impulse?

I would love to! But I am no easy person and people find that difficult sometimes. I think the ambitions of the Olympic Flame must be remained, but they should be brought again under the heading of NOC*NSF. In the OF are all groups that matter involved, their target is to connect.

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Appendix F Presence of actors in the news coverage (frequencies)

Actor Journalist Citizens/General public Members of the ‘bid’ organization Member of an anti-‘bid’ organization Celebrities Politicians The Cabinet / (local) governments Royal family IOC representative of a (federation affiliated to) NOC*NSF Representative of a federation not affiliated to NOC*NSF Person submitted out of business Research(er) Other Total Notes.

5 (1.4%) 22 (6.2%)

Second important actor in article 2 (1.1%) 10 (5.3%)

Third important actor in article 2 (2.1%) 4 (4.2%)

9 (1.4%) 36 (5.6%)

28 (7.9%)

9 (4.7%)

1 (1.1%)

38 (5.9%)

2 (0.6%) 23 (6.5%) 91 (25.6%)

- (0%) 8(4.2%) 63 (33.2%)

- (0%) 3 (3.2%) 29 (30.5%)

2 (0.3%) 34 (5.3%) 183 (28.6%)

15 (4.2%) 9 (2.5%) 18 (5.1%)

7 (3.7%) 1 (.5%) 2 (1.1%)

4 (4.2%) 2 (2.1%) 1 (1.1%)

26 (4.1%) 12 (1.9%) 21 (3.3%)

54 (15.2%)

37 (19.5%)

23 (24.2%)

114 (17.8%)

6 (1.7%)

5 (2.6%)

1 (1.1%)

12 (1.9%)

45 (12.7%) 27 (7.6%) 10 (2.8%) 355 (100%)

21 (11.1%) 20 (10.5%) 5 (2.6%) 190 (100%)

16 (16.8%) 7 (7.4%) 2 (2.1%) 95 (100%)

82 (12.8%) 54 (8.4%) 17 (2.7%) 640 (100%)

Most import actor in article

Total

The values between parentheses are percentages (for the values shown in the columns).

Presence of politicians in the news coverage

Politician VVD PvdA CDA SP D66 PVV GL CHU SGP PvdD Other Total

Most import Second most Third most actor in the important actor important actor article in the article in the article 19 (20.9%) 16 (25.4%) 6 (20.7%) 34 (37.4%) 24 (38.1%) 11 (37.9%) 25 (27.5%) 10 (15.9%) 3 (10.3%) 3 (3.3%) 7 (11.1%) 2 (6.9%) 3 (3.3%) 0 (0%) 1 (1.6%) 2 (6.9%) 7 (7.7%) 2 (3.2%) 3 (4.8%) 5 (17.2%) 91 (100%) 63 (100%) 29 (100%)

Total 41 (22.4%) 69 (37.7%) 38 (20.6%) 12 (6.6%) 3 (1.6%) 4 (2.2%) 9 (4.9%) - (0%) - (0% - (0%) 8 (4.4%) 183 (100%)

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Appendix G Occurrence of combinations between frames and actors Human interest frame First/Second/ Third actor Journalist % within frame % within actor Citizen / general public % within frame % within actor Member of the bid organization % within frame % within actor Member of anti-bid organization % within frame % within actor Celebrity % within frame % within actor Politician % within frame % within actor The Cabinet / (local) government % within frame % within actor Royal family % within frame % within actor IOC % within frame % within actor (Federation affiliated to) NOC*NSF % within frame % within actor Federation not affiliated to NOC*NSF % within frame % within actor Person business environment % within frame % within actor Research(er) % within frame % within actor Other % within frame % within actor Total % within frame % within actor

1 2 2.1%

Conflict frame

2

3

TOT

1

1 2.3%

2 8.7%

5 3.1% 29.4%

2 2.5%

2 23 11 8.7% 14.1% 13.8% 31.5%

15 6 15.6% 13.6%

3

TOT

1

2

3

TOT

0 0%

1 2.9%

3 1.8% 17.6%

0 0%

0 0%

0 0%

0 0% 0%

3 5.6%

2 5.9%

16 9.5% 21.9%

0 0%

0 0%

0 0%

0 0% 0%

2 3.7%

0 0%

5 3.0% 12.8%

12 12.5%

2 4.5%

0 0%

14 8.6% 35.9%

0 0%

0 0%

0 0%

0 0% 0%

1 1.0%

0 0%

0 0%

0 0%

0 0%

14 14.6%

3 6.8%

2 8.7%

1 2 0 0 2 0 0.6% 2.5% 0% 0% 1.2% 0% 33.3% 66.7% 19 5 0 1 6 1 11.7% 6.2% 0% 2.9% 3.6% 100% 37.3% 11.8% 28 20 24 13 57 0 17.2% 25.0% 44.4% 38.2% 33.9% 0% 10.6% 21.5%

1 100%

1 100%

0 0%

0 0%

0 0% 0% 3 100% 5.9% 0 0% 0%

16 9 3 16.7% 20.5% 13.0% 0 0%

1 2.3%

0 0%

0 0%

0 0%

1 4.3%

1 1.0%

0 0%

0 0%

3 3.8%

2

Morality frame

1 1 0.6% 1.2% 5.6% 1 1 0.6% 1.2% 9.1% 1 8 0.6% 10.0% 2.8%

2 1.2% 11.1% 2 1.2% 18.2% 9 5.4% 25.0%

0 0%

0 0%

0 0%

0 0%

0 0%

0 0%

0

0 0%

0 0%

6 8 6 20 7.5% 14.8% 17.6% 11.9% 15.6%

0 0%

0 0%

0 0%

0 0% 0%

1 1.2%

0 0%

0 0%

0 0%

0 0% 0%

13 9 7 29 10 7 6 23 0 13.5% 20.5% 30.4% 17.8% 12.5% 13.0% 17.6% 13.7% 0% 22.5% 17.8% 2 1 1 4 8 2 16 0 2.1% 2.3% 4.3% 2.5% 10.0% 6 5.9% 9.5% 0% 6.3% 11.1% 25.4% 6 2 2 10 2 2 2 6 0 6.2% 4.5% 8.7% 6.1% 2.5% 3.7% 5.9% 3.6% 0% 28.6% 17.1% 96 44 23 163 80 54 34 168 1 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 18.5% 19.1%

0 0%

0 0%

0 0%

0 0%

0 0%

0 0%

1 100%

1 100%

0 0% 0% 0 0% 0% 0 0% 0% 3 100% 0.3%

13 8 3 24 13.5% 18.2% 13.0% 14.7% 18.8% 1 1.0%

2 4.5%

0 0%

3 1.8% 21.4%

1 1.9%

0 0%

0 0%

1 2.9%

1 1.9%

0 0%

0 0%

0 9%

1 0.6% 7.1%

76

0 0% 0% 0 0% 0% 0 0% 0%

Attribution of responsibility frame First/Second/ Third actor Journalist % within frame % within actor Citizens/General public % within frame % within actor Members of the ‘bid’ organization % within frame % within actor Member of an anti-‘bid’ organization % within frame % within actor Celebrities % within frame % within actor Politician of a political party % within frame % within actor The Cabinet / (local) government % within frame % within actor Royal family % within frame % within actor IOC % within frame % within actor (Federation affiliated to) NOC*NSF % within frame % within actor Federation not affiliated to NOC*N % within frame % within actor Person business environment % within frame % within actor Research(er) % within frame % within actor Other % within frame % within actor Total % within frame % within actor

1

2

3

TOT

Economic consequences frame 1

2

3

1 1.0%

1 1.7%

2 5.0%

11 10 6.7% 10.2% 15.1%

4 6.9%

1 21.2% 3.3% 11.8%

Area development controversy frame

TOT

4 2.0% 23.5% 2 16 5.0% 8.2% 21.9%

1

2

3

TOT

1 1.0%

1 1.8%

1 2.9%

6 6.2%

1 1.8%

1 1.1%

0 0%

3 1.6% 17.6% 0 7 0% 3.7% 9.6%

7 8.0%

3 6.5%

1 3.3%

4 4.5%

2 4.3%

0 0%

6 3.7% 15.4%

4 4.1%

0 0%

0 0%

4 2.0% 10.2%

8 8.3%

2 3.5%

0 0%

10 5.3% 25.6%

0 0%

0 0%

0 0%

0 0% 0%

0 0%

0 0%

0 0%

0 0% 0%

0 0%

0 0%

0 0%

0 0% 0%

6 6.8%

1 2.2%

2 6.7%

9 5.5% 17.6%

6 6.1%

1 1.7%

1 2.5%

8 4.1% 15.7%

4 4.2%

2 3.5%

0 0%

6 3.2% 11.8%

26 15 10 51 35 24 13 72 25 22 10 57 29.5% 32.6% 33.3% 31.1% 35.7% 41.4% 32.5% 36.7% 26.0% 38.6% 28.6% 30.3% 19.2% 27.2% 21.5% 0 0%

2 4.3%

0 0%

4 4.5%

0 0%

0 0%

9 10.2%

2 4.3%

1 3.3%

2 1.2% 11.1% 4 2.4% 36.4% 12 7.3% 33.3%

2 2.0%

2 3.4%

3 7.5%

1 1.0%

0 0%

1 2.5%

6 6.1%

0 0%

0 0%

7 3.6% 38.9% 2 1.0% 18.2% 6 3.1% 16.7%

4 4.2%

0 0%

2 5.7%

2 2.1%

0 0%

0 0%

8 8.3%

0 0%

0 0%

6 3.2% 33.3% 2 1.1% 18.2% 8 4.3% 22.2%

14 6 4 24 10 11 8 29 11 9 11 31 15.9% 13.0% 13.3% 14.6% 10.2% 19.0% 20.0% 14.8% 11.5% 15.8% 31.4% 16.5% 18.8% 22.7% 24.2% 2 2.3%

2 4.3%

0 %

4 2.4% 28.6%

0 0%

2 3.4%

0 0%

2 1.0% 14.3%

1 1.0%

3 5.3%

0 0%

4 2.1% 28.6%

7 9 8 24 12 7 5 24 12 10 7 29 8.0% 19.6% 26.7% 14.6% 12.2% 12.1% 12.5% 12.2% 12.5% 17.5% 20.0% 15.4% 18.6% 18.6% 22.5% 6 4 2 12 6 3 3 12 11 5 3 19 6.8% 8.7% 6.7% 7.3% 6.1% 5.2% 7.5% 6.1% 11.5% 8.8% 8.6% 10.1% 19.0% 19.0% 30.2% 2 0 1 3 5 3 2 10 3 2 1 6 2.3% 0% 3.3% 1.8% 5.1% 5.2% 5.0% 5.1% 3.1% 3.5% 2.9% 3.2% 8.6% 28.6% 17.1% 88 46 30 164 98 58 40 196 96 57 35 188 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 18.6% 22.2% 21.3%

77

Occurrence of combinations between frame and politicians

Political party VVD % within frame % within actor PvdA % within frame % within actor CDA % within frame % within actor SP % within frame % within actor D66 % within frame % within actor PVV % within frame % within actor GroenLinks % within frame % within actor Other % within frame % within actor Total % within frame % within actor

Human interest frame 10 35.7% 16.4% 9 32.1% 12.9% 4 14.3% 6.7% 1 3.6% 4.2% 0 0% 0% 0 0% 0% 3 10.7% 17.6% 1 3.6% 5.6% 28 100% 10.6%

Conflict frame 12 21.1% 19.7% 15 26.3% 21.4% 10 17.5% 16.7% 8 14.0% 33.3% 3 5.3% 33.3% 0 0% 0% 2 3.5% 11.8% 7 12.3% 38.9% 57 100% 21.5%

Morality frame 0 0% 0% 0 0% 0% 0 0% 0% 0 0% 0% 0 0% 0% 0 0% 0% 0 0% 0% 0 0% 0% 0 100% 0%

Attribution of responsibility frame

Economic consequences frame

15 29.4% 24.6% 11 21.6% 15.7% 11 21.6% 18.3% 3 5.9% 12.5% 3 5.9% 33.3% 0 0% 0% 3 5.9% 17.6% 5 9.8% 27.8% 51 100% 19.2%

12 16.7% 19.7% 18 25.0% 25.7% 22 30.6% 36.7% 7 9.7% 29.1% 3 4.2% 33.3% 3 4.2% 50% 4 5.6% 23.5% 3 4.2% 16.7% 72 100% 27.2%

Area development controversy frame 12 21.1% 19.7% 17 29.8% 24.3% 13 22.8% 21.7% 5 8.8% 20.8% 0 0% 0% 3 5.3% 50% 5 8.8% 29.4% 2 3.5% 11.1% 57 100% 21.5%

78